Ruth Marcus probably angers me more than she should. Is that my fault, or hers?
I don’t know, but I swear that if I were Jeffrey Bezos and I was coming in and taking over the Washington Post, I would not allow any of my regular columnists to spend more than three months out of the year in the Washington Metro area. It’s just too poisonous to common sense.
While I recently went out on a limb and said something somewhat similar, Ms. Marcus let her irrational exuberance get the better of her in saying “the bipartisan group of 14 senators assembled by Maine Republican Susan Collins represents a vibrant and growing coalition of the reasonable and responsible.” She’s referring to a totally failed effort to get the Democrats to give in to hostage demands. It wasn’t a vibrant effort. It isn’t growing. And we should all be glad that it failed.
Ms. Marcus joins Ezra Klein in arguing that the Democrats will never be able to convince the Republicans to agree to more revenues, so they should just stop trying. I can respect that advice if it is coupled to some kind of overarching strategy wherein the Democrats get something of value, but look at this:
The grand bargain — serious steps to rein in entitlement spending combined with tax reform that would raise major new revenue — has repeatedly proved elusive.
The more attainable alternative is a deal that would buy down some of the “sequester” cuts to discretionary spending by replacing them with trims to the entitlement programs that are at the heart of the budget problem.
Both sides have an incentive here. For Republicans, it is not only the lure of curtailing entitlement spending but also the fact that defense faces a serious, additional hit in the next round of sequester cuts. For Democrats, the squeeze on discretionary spending may be enough to consider accepting entitlement reforms.
The sticking point, as always, will be raising revenue — that is, the Republicans’ unwillingness to consider it, the Democrats’ refusal to budge without it. This phenomenon has both political and substantive dimensions. Politically, Democratic lawmakers demand revenue as the price for entitlement trims, and it will be difficult to persuade them to relent. Substantively, it is galling for Democrats to consider asking for sacrifices from those in the relative middle while the ultra-wealthy are spared.
Certainly a big budget deal would demand a balanced approach. But why must that be true in the current, more limited context of relieving the sequester’s bite? In this situation, demanding tax revenue equivalent, say, to the defense half of the sequester seems more symbolic than essential.
The simple translation of this drivel is that the Democrats should assent to paying for the Pentagon’s operations with Granny’s fixed income, and that they should do so without locking in any new revenue through tax reform. It’s true that Ms. Marcus also suggests that we could pay for NASA and the National Institute of Health and other discretionary spending with Granny’s fixed income, but we all know that the Pentagon would chew it all up, and then some.
In other words, her advice is that, now that the Democrats have won a big victory, they should surrender unilaterally.
Better yet, since the seriously misinformed majority of the public think that billions upon billions are wasted in “foreign aid”, reduce the foreign aid budget to MINUS $500B, and fund the rest of government with that money.
That means demanding that places like, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, South Korea, etc. cough up $50-$100B each. Or else.
It’s the next logical step in the degradation of America.
Yeah, and Iraq needs to pay us for the restoration of democracy and FREEDOM!!! we provided. Wolfowitz’ promise wasn’t enough.
I appreciate the value in our progressive intelligentsia fisking ridiculous pieces like these. And I’m glad people like BooMan are willing and able too.
But lord, am I glad I can go about my day ignoring willful fools like Ruth Marcus, Ron Fourier, David Brooks, etc. People like that will never change, but hopefully, someday, the culture that sustains them will. If America must be stuck with a media elite, we deserve a better one than this, in which the primary skill is one’s ability to climb the greasy pole.
Pretty sure Ron “Keep up the fight, M.C. Rove” Fournier is more of a willing tool than a willing fool.
When Republicans win, it’s a mandate and they should continue to push for more because America loves a big winner who won’t compromise a big win.
When Democrats win, it’s overreach and they should immediately turn the other cheek because nobody likes a big winner who won’t compromise a big win.
Thus it shall ever be, because Ruth Marcus and Ezra “Obamacare’s website is the bubonic plague of our era” Klein says so.
This strikes me as an inevitable (if idiot) result of the framing. Democrats don’t want ‘new taxes’ or ‘more revenue.’ We want ‘universal pre-K education’ and ‘immigration reform’ and ‘a $15/hour minimum wage’ and ‘prosecution of war criminals’ (well, y’know …) and ‘single payer health care’ and ‘ample food and comfortable shelter for seniors.’ As long as she, and her ilk, can hide all that beneath the rock of ‘more revenue,’ this crap is gonna keep staining our sheets.
Reading George Wiil and Dowd today I am not sure why they escaped your wrath
Well, Dick Durban is out there being a willing fool, too.
PPP has new poling with encouraging numbers for House Dems. One more year of this stand off might see us through and back to a governing majority in all three branches. I cannot think of a more certain way to torpedo this opportunity than to fuck with chained CPI and means test Medicare.
I swear I will join the aluminum cap club if Dems deliberately hand this win to the Republicans for ANY reason in the next year.
The one good thing about the sequester is that it enables a major reduction in the MIC budget in a manner no Republican would countenance and no Democrat could achieve. I think we need to go though the process and pain of those sequester cuts even though they also effect many excellent programs all Democrats support. Then, when/if Dems regain control of the House, they can selectively restore spending on social programs whilst making very few concessions on military expenditure unless Republicans sign up to tax increases to fund them. It’s all about creating a new normal and moving the Overton window.
So the Dems must stick with their mantra – no spending increases without new revenues -because otherwise you are just increasing the deficit – not a real problem but one the Republican base have been taught to believe is a real problem. So you are effectively using Republican debt demonology against them.
Let the Republicans go absolutely frantic about military spending reductions. Retain the high ground by saying “of course we want more military expenditure so long as it is funded and doesn’t increase the deficit because the deficit is …an existential threat to the economy (b/s)… and let the Republicans be hung from their own petard.
Of course this will hurt many innocents, but elections have consequences, and everybody should be clear that if you want to increase social spending, you have to actually go out and vote Dem in the mid-terms. After that social spending can be increased without tax increases because the multiplier effect of social spending is particularly high, and increased expenditure there can actually be largely self-funding.
There is a diary on GOS (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/21/1249223/-The-Magical-Thinking-Behind-Thinking-a-Grand-Barga
in-Changes-Everything) that skewers the GB hunters with a theory that they expect to alter the spots of the cat with this gift. Well, get a clue, Dems….
Quote:Just imagine the 2014 election cycle if the so-called “Grand Bargain” had passed. The GOP would be running ads trumpeting how the “Democrat Party” had “gutted” Social Security and Medicare. They telegraphed this when one of the key House Republicans denounced the floating of Chained CPI before being shouted down by the House GOP Leadership because they were supposed to wait until it was the law of the land before attacking the Democrats. Not tip their hand.