On Social Security, Dems Should Take The Deal

President Obama's deficit commission released its preliminary proposals yesterday, which include changes to Social Security. While I can't applaud the commission's broader tax and spending proposals, Democrats should welcome the commission's Social Security options. The Social Security changes include:

1) an increase in the "tax max"--the amount of taxes subject to Social Security taxes;
2)a new, wage-indexed, special minimum benefit for lifelong low earners;
3)an additional minimum benefit for the oldest Social Security beneficiaries, to kick in later in retirement;
4)a slight reduction in the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA);
5)a slight reduction in the benefit formula that will only affect those with higher than average earnings; and
6)a very gradual increase in the full retirement age (FRA) from 67 to 69.

Of these, only the FRA change can be considered as "regressive", but it's by no means a radical proposal, and there are several minimum benefit sweetners to make sure the lowest lifetime earners aren't adversely affected.

But why agree even to these? Because it isn't going to get better. A poorer performing economy means the estimated exhaustion date for Social Security's Trust Fund, currently projected to be 2037, will in all likelihood, only continue to creep closer. And the longer a long term fix is put off, the worse the fixes will need to be. Besides this, we can't know what the political climate will be in six, ten or 18 years. Quite possibly, it could well be worse than today.

This Social Security package would restore long term solvency, go a long way towards protecting it from would-be privatizers, and enhance benefits for the lowest lifetime earners through two new provisions. It also includes a tax max increases, which progressives tend to support. The benefit formula reduction--which some Progressives erroneously liken to "means-testing"--is actually just an extension of the already existing progressive benefit structure. This criticism seems particularly odd coming from progressives who normally want the more well to do to bear the brunt of any Social Security fixes. Progressives can't clamor for higher payroll taxes or higher limits to the "tax max" while simultaneously criticizing benefit reductions that affect higher-than-average earners. In short, this is overall a pretty progressive package of changes to the program, which Progressives and Democrats should support.

The point of being in Congress is to actually do good stuff

This seems like kind of an important point:

To me it seems obvious that having the 111th Congress press hard to get big things done was the right call, even if it contributed to electoral defeat. This is especially true because as I said yesterday you need to do the analysis at the margin. Losing 65 House seats is way worse than losing zero House seats. But dropping the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t have saved 65 House seats. Maybe it would have saved 15. But that’s not nearly as big a deal. The reason you try to win elections is it gives you the chance to pass important laws, so saying you want to avoid passing laws in order to slightly reduce your midterm losses seems silly.

Yglesias goes on to quote conservative writer Ross Douthat:

Politics often gets covered as though the legislative sessions are just a long prelude to the real action of election season. But for all the breathless horse-race coverage, elections only matter to the extent that they produce (or forestall) actual legislation. And where the policies of the United States government are concerned, all the ground the Republicans regained tonight doesn’t change the fact that what liberals achieved in Barack Obama’s first two years in office was more consequential than any conservative victories in recent memory.

So, the point of being in Congress and holding majorities in Congress is to actually get good legislation that helps people passed. The point of being in Congress and holding majorities in Congress is not to just keep being in Congress and holding majorities in Congress the next time. Hopefully the no-guts, no brains assclowns muttering about Nancy Pelosi will figure that out.

Surviving

Even though the Democrats got shellacked in the U.S. House, I'm feeling much better today than maybe I should. At the moment it appears that the Democrats will hold the Senate with a 53-47 edge. If Republicans had not nominated teabaggers in several key states, we would be looking at a Democratic minority in the Senate as well. And locally, Maryland Democratic candidates generally did really well.

But the House losses were huge and it will take several more cycles, and probably a lot of bad legislation, to reverse those. And the Democratic's hold over the Senate may be short-lived because they will need to defend more tough seats in '12. So, it's possible that even though last night's vote prevented an outbreak of full-blown-crazy, it might only be a temporary salve, especially if the economy does not improve significantly or if there is another significant terrorist attack.

Nonetheless I was greatly relieved to see Harry Reid win his seat over Sharon Angle. Hopefully, Patty Murray will hang on in Washington State.

I doubt any legislation of consequence will get passed in the next two years. Any that will, will be bad (i.e. extending all of the Bush tax cuts).

Elsewhere in Maryland

Martin O'Malley cruising to a re-election victory over Bob Ehrlich. This was a closer race at one point, and Ehrlich signs are ubiquitous in my area of central Maryland (above DC, below Baltimore). Maryland, Oh My Maryland. Guess signs don't win elections.

Also too, Frank Kratovil, blue dog "independent" Dem who voted against the HCR bill is losing to the Repub. Kratovil's ads have been all over the tv. Can't feel sorry for this guy. See ya, Frank.

Dems to hold Senate

CNN has the Dems with 47 seats in the Senate (counting the two Independents) with Hawaii, Oregon and California still to close. Assuming the Dems win those three Senate seats, and there aren't any party switches, that would give them 50, with VP Biden providing a tie-breaker. And there's still Murray in Washington and Reid in Nevada in close races. So the Senate looks promising. At least we may forestall the really supercrazy for another two years.

Hoyer could be in trouble (updated below, update II, update III)

The #2 Dem in the House, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer is trailing his Republican opponent 53%-46%, with 14% of the vote in. Still early. But the Repub is an African-American and this is a heavily African American district.

Good Democrat Rush Holt of NJ also trails with about 25% of the vote in.

Update I: CNN is now projecting Hoyer to win, although he still trails 53%-46% with 17% of the vote in. State-wide, the Republican vote tends to come in earlier, but for this district, I don't know.

Update II: 39% of the vote now in and Hoyer way ahead with 65% of the vote. Sorry for the false alarm.

Update III: CNN has now projected that Good Democrat Rush Holt of NJ will retain his House seat. Very good news.

Before the Morning After

I know tonight's going to be bad, but I did a lot of hand-wringing after the ‘94 mid-terms, then again in ’95 when the pundit class told me Clinton was toast, then in ’98when the pundit class wanted Clinton impeached before Dems won seats, then in 2000, then in 2002 when it looked like The War On Terror had Changed Everything, and I doubly wrang my hands again in 2004 when the pundit class told me it was all about the Values Voters. In 2006 the pundit class and my own pessimism had me convinced there was no way the Dems could win Congress again. Then in 2008 I couldn’t believe Americans would elect a black dude with the middle name of Hussein and the last name of Obama.

I wouldn’t worry much about the long-term impact of tonight’s results. It’s a mid-term (see 1982 1994), the economy is really bad (see 1982). If it stays bad, we might have more to worry about.

Profiles in Courage: Kent Conrad, ND

Today's Post:

At a time when many lawmakers are running away from the hated 2008 bank bailout, Sen. Kent Conrad is holding it close - and waging a one-man campaign to rehabilitate the program in the eyes of angry voters.

Over the past week, Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, has crisscrossed the state, delivering speeches to college economics classes and lecturing skeptical editorial boards, in addition to making his pitch on national television.

On Thursday morning, thousands of North Dakota newspaper subscribers awoke to a full-page ad with colorful charts and graphs about the improving economy, alongside a vigorous defense of the bailout and the equally reviled 2009 economic stimulus package.

The ad describes the perilous economic conditions that prompted a terrified Congress to approve the $700 billion bailout - officially, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP - just before the 2008 presidential election. It argues that TARP not only helped save the nation from a full-blown depression but cost much less than expected, with parts of the program turning a small profit.

And it cleverly reminds readers, front and center, that TARP was conceived by a Republican president, who just last week defended it during a lecture at the University of Texas at Tyler.

"President George W. Bush Explains Why He Created TARP," the ad says by way of introducing Bush's remarks, which are highlighted in yellow: "Depression, no depression . . . It wasn't that hard for me . . . I made the decision to use your money to prevent the collapse from happening."

Conrad, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, is not on the ballot this year. And he has not decided whether to seek re-election when his term ends in 2012. So he has little to lose personally from defending the bailout.

Meanwhile, Democrats in North Dakota and nationally are getting hammered over their TARP and stimulus votes. Conrad said his campaign is an effort to help alleviate what he called "the major drag" on Democrats this campaign season.

Voter anger over the programs stems from "a fundamental lack of understanding," Conrad said. "At the time, we absolutely failed to help educate the American people as to how serious the situation was and how essential these steps were."

In addition to a Republican president, his Treasury secretary, his Federal Reserve chairman and Republican congressional leaders, Conrad said, Republican business leaders "came to us in droves" demanding aid for the banks and more liquidity through stimulus.

"Now all of a sudden they've all got amnesia," Conrad said. "But had people not stepped up, we would be in extremely serious shape."

The Post's Continued Love Affair with Michelle Rhee and Education "Reform"

I'm sure the Washington, DC schools need improvement, and I'm sure these folks are well-intentioned and quite generous, but this item in The Post's Metro section today is a little creepy.

You've got all these, may I say, Elite folks, throwing money at the DC schools and wanting certain processes put into place as a consequence for giving that money. One can read this article and reasonably conclude that public education policy in DC is being set by a highly select group of private donors. The article does note that Gray and his associates are trying to stress that as happy as they are to receive this money and attention and as committed as they are to school "reform", that there are still the actual parents of kids who go to the schools and residents who pay the taxes for the schools that, you know, actually need to be involved in the process.

This Is The Dumbest Thing Ever Written

Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist, come on down.

Those and a general distrust of government are what motivate most Tea Party members, The Post discovered. Their allegiance to any political party is minimal. Obama, with almost no political record, might have made inroads with these people. Instead, he managed to become the personification of Big Government -- not just with his programs (necessary though they might be) but with his persona and isolation in the White House. He banned lobbyists but managed to transform himself into the biggest one of all. He blew it.

Yeah, Obama surely blew it by not finding common ground with this gang.

Very Serious People we should revere

Ruth Marcus in today's Post:

Asked what had inspired her to fly to the capital from Colorado, Andrea Carrasco started with God and ended with light bulbs.

She came, Carrasco said, to "ask God to restore the country. Our freedom is lost. My freedoms are lost. To be able to preach anywhere we want, to have God in our schools, to drive any kind of car we want and if I want to drive a gas guzzler, I can, if I want to eat a lot of sugar and salt, and I shouldn't be forced to buy medical care."

Carrasco paused, but only briefly. "To be able to burn the kind of light bulb I want," she added. "The list goes on."

I'm not aware of any laws preventing anyone from buying the latest gas guzzling SUV on the market, but I guess she hasn't considered that maybe "God" doesn't want her to "drive any kind of car we want."

Like most evangelicals, God seems to exist to indulge her every material desire whether or not such desires deplete scarce natural resources.

She also doesn't want to be "forced to buy medical care". I wonder who she wants to foot the bill when she or one of her rugrats ends up in the emergency room?

Murphy for half-term governor

In her nation-wide endorsement-tour, former half term Alaska governor and current Fauxbot Sarah Palin has endorsed a little known Maryland businessman--Brian Murphy--for governor of The Free State. In snubbing former full-term Republican governor, Robert Ehrich, who is running to regain the office he lost in 2006 to Democrat Martin O'Malley, Palin apparently was convinced that Murphy would follow her lead and abandon his office half way through his term.

Mission Accomplished 2

Bob Herbert is not impressed:

July was the deadliest month yet for American troops in Afghanistan. Sixty-six were killed, which was six more than the number who died in the previous most deadly month, June. The nation is paying little or no attention to those deaths, which is shameful. The president goes to fund-raisers and yuks it up on “The View.” For most ordinary Americans, the war is nothing more than an afterthought.

We’re getting the worst of all worlds in Afghanistan: We’re not winning, and we’re not cutting our tragic losses. Most Americans don’t care because they’re not feeling any of the tragic losses. A tiny, tiny portion of the population is doing the fighting, and those troops are sent into the war zone for tour after tour, as if they’re attached to a nightmarish yo-yo.

Some kind of shared sacrifice is in order, but neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Obama called on Americans to make any real sacrifices in connection with either of these wars. The way to fight a war is to mobilize the country — not just the combat troops — behind an integrated wartime effort. To do that, leaders have to persuade the public that the war is worth fighting, and worth paying for.

The Ownership Society

Via Atrios.

I don't think "ownership" means what some policy elites think it means.

Meanwhile, back in The Media Village

I don't watch any of the Sunday talking head shows. But, and maybe even because of this, I can't for the life of me fathom what lies underneath the Washington Post's "TV Critic"'s smear of new This Week host, Christiana Amanpour.

"...the Grand Duchess Amanpour approached on her royal barge from overseas."

Grand Duchess?

And,

And it didn't require any globe-trotting Fancy-Pants (Amanpour) to do it.

Globe-trotting Fancy-Pants?

Does the Washington Post have people who edit, or at least review, what it plans to print?

Shale's good old boy, America F*ck Yeah sympathies were also apparently slighted by this:

Perhaps in keeping with the newly globalized program, the commendable "In Memoriam" segment ended with a tribute not to American men and women who died in combat during the preceding week but rather, said Amanpour in her narration, in remembrance of "all of those who died in war" in that period. Did she mean suggest that our mourning extend to members of the Taliban?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe Ananpour was thinking of the women, children, and other unarmed people killed by our drones or by Driving While a Citizen in one of the dozen or so countries the U.S. is current occupying. By for Shales, and apparently the Washington Post, the world only consists of Our Men & Women In The Military and The Terrorists. And wasn't referring to Americans killed overseas used to be some kind of defeatism?

Jeffersonian "Independence"

Conservative think tank welfare recipient, Faux pundit and apparent crack smoker Michael Barone thinks the nation is moving away from "the redistributional policies of progressives towards America's traditional 'culture of independence' " and that the nation is becoming "once again, as in the days of the early republic and not in the heyday of the Progressives and New Dealers, a republic of property owners."

Well. Uwe Reinhardt highlights retirement income data to challenge this idea.

Meanwhile, just a few minutes on the Intertubes this morning yielded these items of interest:

Recession was deeper than government previously thought
How the older half lives
How bad is Nevada?

So, (1) the economy continues to suck; (2) fewer people are saving for retirement, more of the aged are living alone and there will be more aged and alone people in the future, a majority of whom depend on government Social Security for their income and (3) the economy continues to suck, and this "republic of property owners" contains a lot of property without owners.

So, yeah, great "culture of independence" you got there. At least the top quintile is doing pretty well, and they're the group Barone hangs around with and thinks about.

On a more positive note, early returns on the much derided government directed automaker bailouts are good:

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was asked if the administration was in effect saying “we told you so” to conservative critics like Rush Limbaugh who have continued to denounce the auto bailout.

Some wanted to walk away, Mr. Gibbs said. But he added, “The president didn’t think that walking away from a million jobs in these communities made a lot of economic sense.”

Barone needs to get out more.

Putting the Teabaggers on notice

Guest-blogging at Andrew Sullivan's place, Dave Weigel thinks the fact that the NAACP's resolution calling for the teabaggers to repudiate the racists in their midst generated a series of nasty responses from the teabaggers means that the NAACP's resolution failed.

Weigel thinks the proper means of calling attention to the racism in the teabagging bowel movement is to...what? I don't know.

Unlike Weigel I think the NAACP's resolution succeeded. It got the teabaggers to respond in an ugly, defensive way, and getting the media to talk about it. The resolution was also a means of putting the teabaggers on notice. Anytime the teabaggers want to invite the Tom Tancredo's of the world to their meetings and applaud their calls for literacy tests and as long as their leaders continue to be like Mark Williams who hate on the NAACP and write ugly, racist mock letters trying to tell African-Americans what's good for them, the wider media and political world will be forced to consider the teabagging bowel movement's true character. And if they don't, the NAACP is on record for making the group's racism visible.

Besides passing HCR, Wall Street reform and reviving the U.S. Auto Industry, what have the Romans/Obama Administration ever done for us?

There's been a great deal of blog-chatter about the State of Obama lately, with its defenders offering the passage of HCR, the stimulus, financial reform, energy legislation in the House, etc, and its detractors complaining about the inadequacies of much of the accomplishments, not to mention the Administration's war, civil liberties and civil rights policies being mostly lacking.

One thing I don't hear much discussion of (besides conservative complaints about it being a bailout or takeover of the industry) has been the survival, if not outright revival, of the U.S. auto industry, particularly that of Chrysler and GM. When the Obama Administration took office, these two key automakers were entering into bankruptcy or worse. Some erstwhile American "patriots" seem to wish them to die off. So on top of trying to revive the economy in general, Obama faced the potential vanishment of at least two members of the U.S. auto industry's Big Three, not exactly an encouraging prospect.

To preserve two of the premier pillars of American capitalism, the Obama Administration did take an assertive approach: buying company stock and pushing for company reorganizations, among other tactics. While a few steps were taken earlier, the Administration rolled out the parameters of its plan in March of 2009. General Motors streamlined itself, eliminating the product lines of Saturn and Pontiac. Since then, GM and Chrysler have begun paying back government loans, the Toyota car company experienced notorious safety recalls, and the U.S. industry seems to have returned, albeit in a slightly different form and admittedly not to the level of its boom years. But the companies are continuing to do business and represent America in the world of manufacturing, something we elsewhere aren't doing much of these days.

It seems to me like this is a rather under-reported story. Perhaps it's a bit too early to say how Chrysler and GM will ultimately fair. But if we're going to assess the Administration, its record with the auto companies seems like a rightful element to consider. The Administration could help by giving the country an update as to the industry's progress and engaging in a little self-promotion, if such is warranted. And maybe our press, along with liberal bloggers disenchanted with the president, could take note.

Consider a counter-factual in which Chrysler and GM were allowed to go out of business--as seemed highly possible--in Obama's first year. It's highly likely that Faux news and Glenn Beck would have spent the last 18 months charging Obama with treason or incompetence for failing to "save" the American auto companies. Their collapse would have been attributed to his failures and so forth.

Deep Thoughts - 17th Amendment Edition

Without the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which the teabaggers would like to do away with, the teabaggers wouldn't have been able to help get Pickup Truck Scotty Brown elected to the Senate. Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Massachusett's General Court.

"Obama Disses White Guys"? Really, Washington Examiner?

That was the headline that blared out from the freebie tabloid known as the Washington Examiner this morning. The basis for this accusation springs from the usual DrudgeFauxMalkinLimbaugh cesspool, and concerns Obama's singling out of African American, Hispanic and female voters as being crucial for the Fall campaign.

Maybe this is news to the Examiner, but African Americans, Hispanics and female voters have historically been marginalized in the voting process. African American and Hispanic voters also tend to vote in smaller proportions to their share of the population, especially in mid-term elections. Maybe this is news to the Examiner as well. And yes, some of these marginalized groups have tended to vote Democratic. How about that. Maybe it's because Democratic and Progressive reformers were instrumental in helping previously disenfranchized Americans obtain the vote. Obama didn't say anything about not wanting or needing White votes, or not wanting Whites to vote. Whites tend, and have tended, to be well represented in the voting process. It's possible the Examiner doesn't know this. Nor did Obama reveal any elaborate, conniving plans in combination with the now defunct ACORN, or Michael Moore, or George Soros, to deny Whites, male or otherwise the vote. So the Examiner, doing its duty to pass along the Republican message of the day/year/term, is just making shit up.

This is probably a good place to say something about the appearance of the Washington Examiner, which started showing up around DC Metro stations on or about 2008. While the financial and personnel troubles at the conservative Washington Times have drawn some attention in recent months, its decline has been supplemented by the arrival of the free Examiner. Seems as if the conservative money behind the Times, after deciding it couldn't sell it's paper, just decided to hand it out for free. It hired Faux News regular Michael Barone and Byron York of the National Review to write for it, rendering its political coverage a "fair and balanced" mix of conservative and more conservative. But it is pretty slickly produced and more substantive than the similar but more Style-feature oriented Washington Post Express, a freebie tabloid that began showing up a short time before the arrival of the Examiner.

The Examiner's trafficking and packaging of the republican noise machine's memes has been apparent from the getgo, but in today's edition, it's hit a disturbingly new low. At long last, Examiner, have you no decency?

I know none dare call it racism to expose the confederacy celebration movement's racism, but it's time for those of good conscience to speak up and loudly about the distribution of shit like this. The Examiner's ad sponsors would be a good place to start.