Category: Congress

Obama Budget Plan

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It’s a decent plan, though once again, it appears to not go quite far enough.

  • He’s rolling back the Bush tax cuts at the top tax brackets, though I think that the max marginal rate should made far higher, something like the 70% we had pre-Reagan for income above $5 million/year or so.
  • He’s spending $634 billion on expanding healthcare access, which is good, but the real need exceeds $1 trillion.
  • Closes some of the more egregious tax loopholes.
  • Cuts farm aid to big farms

He is also estimating a decent bit of revenue from a carbon cap-and-trade system, which I think is in error. He underestimates the costs of enforcement, speculative pressures, and evasion, which is why I favor a straight carbon tax.

Because the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats are the Suck

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It looks like the corporate whore Blue Dog and New Democrat caucuses are doing their level best to kill the ability of bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages on primary residences. (Cram-downs)

Chairman of the New Democrat Caucus, Ellen Tauscher, that it’s not fair to people not in bankruptcy who are being screwed by their banks, which is complete bullsh$#.

If people have the stick of cram-downs to wave at the banks, it makes those banks much more likely to renegotiate loans.

What’s more, it only applies to loans already made, not those going forward, and, depending on draft, may only be limited to sub-prime mortgages…..It is very weak tea to begin with.

This is “I want donations from the banks” crap, and Ellen Tauscher is in a very safe Dem district, having won each election with more than 65% of the vote since redistricting.

She needs to be primaried, but according to Act Blue, she does not have a primary opponent right now…..Damn.

When Did Steny Hoyer Grow Some?

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Because he is now leaning on Pelosi to take a tough stand with Harry Reid:

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to take a harder line with the Senate after a trio of Republican senators forced Congress to trim billions from the $787 billion economic stimulus package.

It’s not clear how far Pelosi is willing to go in standing up to the Senate — or, realistically, what effect Hoyer and Pelosi combined could have in the face of the 60-vote hurdle Senate Democrats face.

But after last week’s stimulus votes, Hoyer called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to force Senate Republicans to mount actual filibusters if they want to stand in the way of bills “so that the American people can see who’s undermining action.”

….

(emphasis mine)

I’m not sure what is going on, but I’m not complaining.

Filubuster Reform

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There appears to be a lot of discussion on the blogosphere right now about how the filibuster.

Some are calling for outright abolition, and some are calling for significant changes in the rules governing the filibuster.

I made a graph of cloture motions (Data from the Senate web site), and it speaks volumes.

The first thing to notice is that cloture votes did not break double digits until the 1971-1972 session.

I it was at some point in the 1970s (I’m unable to find it on “the Google”, but it was at some point in the 1970s*), that people no longer had to talk to filibuster: It became a courtesy, not a rule, just the magnanimity of the Majority Leader that if a cloture vote failed, the legislation was pulled.

In addition, the requirements for the filibuster where changed in 1975 from 2/3 of those present and voting to 60% of all Senators in good standing (hence the issues with Kennedy having to show up on the stimulus).

There are a number of problems:

  • A non vote should never be counted as a no
  • What had been a measure of last resort until the end of the 60s has expanded to become a tool of electoral gamesmanship, and so has created a de facto 60 % supermajority to pass anything.

This is further complicated by the fact that there are times where we want the minority to be able to obstruct the majority.
vote. (*cough* Janice Rogers Brown *cough*)†

So, what do we do about a process that has created the disgusting spectacle of a man with a brain tumor, another one having to rush home from his mother’s funeral to break the filibuster, and Republicans admitting paying off the losing candidate in order to tie up the appointment of a Senator in court.

My opinion is that we start by enforcing the rules as they actually exist, and not accord the minority power that they do not have.

Courtesy is a two way street, and the abuse of the filibuster shuts that down.

Make them talk, and let them go hoarse, and have to stay in the Senate.

What’s more with CSPAN covering Congress, the spectacle of Senators talking for hours and days will not only be broadcast locally on cable, it will find its way to Leno, and Letterman, and Jon Stewart, and they will look like complete tools.

If it’s that important, they will still talk. If it isn’t, they will STFU.

As to actual rules changes, that is a difficult thing to do, at least until one side or the other breaks 60 Senators, but I would suggest that the 60% be retained, but that it be of the votes cast, which means that those who support the filibuster need to stay in order to thwart it.

*Another reason to hate the decade, along with Disco, Polyester leisure suits, and pet rocks.
†F%$# you, gang of 14.

Not This Sh&% Again

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Yes, it’s the gifts that keep on giving, courtesy of Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich, and not it appears taht Burris “forgot” to mention that Blago’s brother hit him up for a donation before his appointment:

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

Please, just make it stop.

If Burris had any illusion about running for office in 2010, this needs to stop right now.

On a more personal level, please, just make it stop.

OK, This Puts Some Context in the Gregg Withdrawal

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It appears that Judd Gregg’s intended replacement, Bonnie Newman, was facing strong opposition from the Taliban wing of the Republican Party, and was likely to withdraw, which would have given Democratic Governor John Lynch the cover to appoint a Democrat.

Gee, I wonder why the Taliban wing of the Republican Party would be freaking out about a life long Republican who just happens to be a 63 year old unmarried woman.

To be fair, I haven’t found anything online about her personal life, except in comments on stories that “the Google” brought up, but there is a rumor out there, which would get Dobson and his ilk upset.

Huh???? Judd Gregg Drops Out As Commerce Secretary

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OK, this is a surprise to me, and it appears to be one to the White House, where a source described themselves as blindsided by Gregg’s announcement.

The folks at TPM suggest that it might be that Gregg was the target of a wall of noise from the increasingly moribund Republican party in New Hampshire, or perhaps that the reason that he accepted the post in the first place was to run the Census, and Obama taking it out from beneath him made him change his mind, though this raises the question, “why now?” when it has been clear for a week.

I dunno, maybe someone has pictures of him with a goat. He’s a Republican, after all.

Senate Committee Approves Hilda Solis

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If you recall the Republicans have been blocking a vote because they are demanding that she recuse herself from anything involving the Employee Free Choice act, even though a labor secretary is supposed to, you know, support labor, and passage of the bill is an explicit goal of Barack Obama.

After all this, she was approved by a voice vote in a meeting lasting perhaps 2 minutes.

The ‘Phants are really a bunch of dickwads.

House-Senate Stimulus Bill Reports Out

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That was fast, I think that the deal may have been negotiated on the way to the conference room.

Basic changes are (unless otherwise noted, changes are from the House):

  • Size, down from the $820 billion (House) to $838 billion (Senate) 50 789 billion.
  • Retains the AMT tax cut put in by the Senate. ($70 billion, not stimulative)
  • Cuts in grants for broadband build out in rural areas remains, but has been trimmed a bit.
  • The Senate tax provisions allowing losses to be carried further forward by businesses was limited to only small (under $5 million/year receipts) businesses.
  • The car purchase tax credit, proposed by my Senator* Barbara Mikulski which would allow consumers to write off interest on auto loans, was shrunk to just cover sales and excise taxes.
  • The house flipping tax credits were trimmed. Instead of a $15,000/10% tax credit, the existing $7500 tax credit, which is actually a loan, it has to be repaid over time, was extended a year.
  • Thank goodness, the house flipping tax credit was a really bad idea.)
  • Individual tax credits were reduced from $500/$1000 per person/couple to $400/$800.
  • Grants to state governments and grants for school repairs were trimmed from $95 bllion to $54 billion.
  • Extend and increase unemployment benefits.

I’m not particularly impressed, but it’s better than doing nothing.

*And I wish that she wasn’t.