Happy New Year, everybody! We enjoyed a low-key and fairly early night with friends, in anticipation of celebrating Finn’s fourth birthday this morning. He’s convinced that he’ll magically be able to do a lot of things now that he’s not three anymore. I hope he’s not too disappointed to learn that things don’t work like that. CabinGirl is working on his cake this morning.
On the political front, I note that Harry Reid intends to make the first order of business on Monday an effort to extend unemployment insurance for the 1.3 million people who just lost that benefit on Saturday. His fellow senator from Nevada, Dean Heller, is co-sponsoring the legislation along with Senator Jack Reed (D-RI).
However, there is little reason to believe that the House will agree to an extension, and they certainly won’t agree to one unless it is offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The best time to extend benefits was when the Murray-Ryan budget negotiations were underway, because the Republican leadership and most of their appropriators were desperate for a deal. The White House doesn’t think a deal was attainable that included an extension, and that may be true. But, for me, that just makes it less likely that an extension can be achieved now.
Personally, I think the truth is more that the White House wasn’t willing to risk losing what they got out of the deal by insisting on an extension, and they figure that they can use it as an effective political issue. I got a bit of a brushback on that, by I don’t care if it strikes some folks on Pennsylvania Avenue as an offensive suggestion. I think they made a calculation, and the long-term unemployed were left to the mercy of the House Republicans.
Maybe that was the best choice under the circumstances but, in my view, the only way to vindicate that choice is to prove me wrong and actually compel the House to pass an extension. Otherwise, I’ll have to conclude that they didn’t fight when it actually mattered.
I’ve the perfect offset. A temporary corporate income tax surcharge equal to the unemployment rate in December 2013 that expires September 30, 2014 and is earmarked specifically for the extended unemployment fund. If there’s less need for extended unemployment benefits, that money goes unspent.
You see, I’m thinking of ways to shake that $3 trillion that corporations have sitting on the table out into real productive job-creating investments. (The I term of C+I+G+(X-M). Increasing the minimum wage would also do that. Increasing Social Security benefits puts money into the C (consumer spending) term.
Of course the Republicans won’t like it. Their purpose is to saddle President Obama with the longest recessionary unemployment recovery in history. Why are certain Democrats still playing along with this nonsense?
It gets better: unemployment benefits for the previous week are generally available on Wednesday, having provided US Bank with twenty-four hours of interest revenue. The system however, is shut down today, handing the bank an additional twenty-four hours of interest revenue while denying the funds to the recipients.
I don’t doubt Obama threw us under the bus, and I highly doubt there will be an extension. Of late I’ve been giving thought to Dick Cheney’s One Percent Doctrine: if there is a percent chance of a threat we have the right to pre-emptively address the perceived threat. These people are trying to kill me.
That the Corporate/Church new year falls nine days after the actual new year is just plain stupid.
The bankers’ greedy paws on benefits that are supposed to offset poverty and unemployment suck big time. Surely there is some way not to allow this graft.
Tain’t nothin’ to it!
I’ve been unemployed for almost 5 years.
LIFE SUCKS when you’re unemployed…
Personally, I think the truth is more that the White House wasn’t willing to risk losing what they got out of the deal by insisting on an extension, and they figure that they can use it as an effective political issue. I got a bit of a brushback on that, by I don’t care if it strikes some folks on Pennsylvania Avenue as an offensive suggestion. I think they made a calculation, and the long-term unemployed were left to the mercy of the House Republicans.
Can anyone tell me what Democrats actually got out of the budget deal? I mean stuff you can campaign on. Bueller? You’re right about this one. The WH got played on this, and they don’t really care because us out here could see this coming a mile away(meaning what the GOP would/will do).
They got a budget. Instead of an endless series of continuing resolutions.
Like the ones that were passed in ’10, instead of a budget. Because no one on the D side of the aisle wanted a budget vote thrown back at them in the mid-terms.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Does anyone care? Budgets that came in under the Zombie-eyed Granny-starver’s original “ask”?
You seem to believe the original Ryan budget and the budget we now have reflect the same policies. They most assuredly do not, even if the baseline numbers are close. The granny-starver’s “ask” included making Medicare a voucher program, block-granting Medicaid, wholesale eviscerations of all other social welfare programs, big increases in defense spending, and a preposterous, broad tax cut for the rich. It certainly didn’t include the up-front investments Murray managed to get in the deal, or the revenue from air passengers which will disproportionally hit the rich.
All the same, I agree that this is not a budget to run on, but we needed to get to regular order, and we did so while keeping SS/Medi/Medi intact. Governing through nonstop hostage takings and last-second CR’s through the mid-terms would have been much, much worse to run on.
I should clarify. By “ask” I mean spending levels. I don’t mean his Medicare stuff. The spending levels in this budget are far below what’s needed. If we don’t tip back into recession we’ll be lucky. Basically, we’re eating the seed corn. Voters don’t give a shit about process. Make their lives better and you’ll get their vote. Why do you think Democrats held power for so long after FDR?
Happy new year to all of you !
It’s so true, if you make people lives better you’ll get their vote!
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If we hadn’t gained a budget deal, and the next sequester cuts would have kicked in, many extra shovelfuls of seed corn would have been taken from our mouths and thrown into the incinerator.
Look, I DON’T LIKE THE BUDGET. We absolutely have to keep the pressure on for IE, SNAP and a bunch of other things. What I’m trying to understand is how we believe Murray and Congressional Dems could have achieved much more in this year’s negotiations, given the bad hand they had. Since the GOP appears to be ready to make the bizarre decision to go to brinksmanship on the debt ceiling again, there’ll certainly be no lack of opportunities in 2014 to draw contrasts between the two parties.
And you may say people don’t care about process, and I would largely agree with you, but there are any number of ways to spend $1 billion. By their own budgets, we can see that the GOP would spend that same $1 billion much shittier than the Dems would if they were not required to compromise. That can and should be a campaign issue.
So why did fight’n liberals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders vote for this?
Why did the Messiah, Alan Grayson himself, vote for this?
The result of using it as a weapon isn’t to compel the House GOP to pass the bill because they were never going to do it, now or during the budget deal. The weapon is to win the 2014 election, pure and simple.
The problem is plain and simple like it has been the last 3 years … the House GOP. If they are actual human people they would pass it.
I agree. There’s basically no prospect that Congress is going to do anything meaningful anyway, so they might as well enter campaign mode.
And of course it’s not just about winning the House, it’s about having a functioning Congress and doing the things that need to be done.
Immigration reform, for instance. The Republicans think they’re going to make 2014 all about healthcare.gov, but meanwhile there are 11 million people who are still waiting. Or more than 11 million, actually, because we know that a pretty significant majority supports the bill that the Senate passed, and that Boehner is blocking because No.
So I don’t know what’s possible under the Senate rules, but given the number of times the House has repealed Obamacare, I don’t think there’s any reason why the Senate can only pass immigration reform once. Pass it again! Then pass ENDA again.
And so on and so forth. There’s no shortage of popular and necessary bills that the Republicans are blocking, so keep the pressure on.
the GOP – sociopaths…the entire lot of them
Happy birthday Finn!
Finn says thanks!
Obama made it clear from the beginning that his highest goal was to bring peace and civility to the two parties. Yes, it was naive to believe that was possible, but he’s never quite given up. So when he saw the GOP falling apart, and some of them willing to work with the Dems to pass a bipartisan budget, he had no choice but to agree to it. He believes that it he can get the parties to cooperate, in the long run that will mean more than any one thing that is passed now. And yeah, that’s true. I just wonder if there is actually any evidence that they are willing to cooperate in the future and that they’re not just abusing his good will, yet again. Or if he simply feels that there isn’t any other good choice.
Welcome to 2009!
We want JOBS for the unemployed. We don’t want more unemployment payouts.
But instead Congress wants to expand the H-1B counts, and extend more green cards. This is wrong. The jobs are needed for Americans.
And, no, there is no shortage of STEM workers. This is a huge lie and a scam of the system.