Bernie Sanders:

If we are serious about making Social Security strong and solvent for the next 75 years, President Obama has the right solution. On October 14, 2010, he restated a long-held position that the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, now at $106,800, should be raised. As the president has long stated, it is absurd that billionaires pay the same amount into the system as someone who earns $106,800.

With the richest people in this country getting richer and the middle class in decline, it is absurd that billionaires pay the same amount into the Social Security system as someone who earns $106,800.

Kent Conrad won't like it though.

Speaking for me only

Senator Kent Conrad says:

I would agree with what the president said. Instead of shooting [the Catfood Commission proposal] down, propose an alternative — but one that does as good of a job as this one does at getting us back on a sound fiscal choice[.]

I can think of a few things but let's start with this one - NO TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH! How does Kent Conrad feel about that? Oh wait:

Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)[. . .] said Wednesday that Congress should not allow taxes on the wealthy to rise until the economy is on a more sound footing.

STFU Kent Conrad.

Speaking for me only

In the dark days of "triangulation," President Clinton delivered his 1998 State of the Union Address:

If we maintain our resolve, we will produce balanced budgets as far as the eye can see. We must not go back to unwise spending or untargeted tax cuts that risk reopening the deficit. Last year, together, we enacted targeted tax cuts so that the typical middle class family will now have the lowest tax rates in 20 years.

My plan to balance the budget next year includes both new investments and new tax cuts targeted to the needs of working families: for education, for child care, for the environment. But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of you to meet this test: approve only those priorities that can actually be accomplished without adding a dime to the deficit.

Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is projected that we will then have a sizable surplus in the years that immediately follow. What should we do with this projected surplus? I have a simple, four-word answer: save Social Security first.

Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus, that is every penny of any surplus, until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century. Let us say, let us say to all Americans watching tonight, whether you are 70 or 50 or whether you just started paying into the system, Social Security will be there when you need it. Let us make this commitment: Social Security first.

(Emphasis supplied.) Next month, will President Obama be a Bill Clinton Democrat, intent on putting Social Security first? Or an Evan Bayh Democrat, cutting taxes for the rich and cutting Social Security. I'm not optimistic.

Speaking for me only

Another problem for the Catfood Commission - seniors vote.

Atrios writes:

The Democratic Party Self-Destruction Act

That's what Bowles and Simpson have submitted.

Conservative blogger Professor Bainbridge thinks Simpson and Bowles have submitted the Republican Party Self-Destruction Act:

Remember all those older tea party types who wanted the government to keep its hands off their Social Security and Medicare? Even setting aside opposition in the Senate and the White House, how does the House GOP cut old folk's entitlements without sending seniors running back to the Democrats for protection?

No sane political party will embrace the Catfood Commission. None ever would. It's DOA.

Speakng for me only

Krugman:

OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.

Most of us knew the Catfood Commission was a Clown Show. This makes it official.

Speaking for me only

The first reports on the the Catfood Commission Report indicate that it has chosen to be a silly vanity project with no real world impact at all. The reason I say this is because it appears ready to recommend pie in the sky "think tank" style proposals that are politically DOA. Let's look at some of the specifics:

The proposed simplification of the tax code would repeal or modify a number of popular tax breaks — including the deductibility of mortgage interest payments[.]

Forget the merits of this proposal, the chances of this happening are precisely ZERO. So everything that follows from this (across the board income tax cuts) have no chance of being part of a deficit reduction plan.

Most of the reported recommendations strike me as right wing nonsense wholly unrelated to deficit reduction, including a full out assault on Social Security. I can not imagine a politician in the country embracing it. Maybe I am too sanguine, but it looks DOA to me. And thank goodness for that.

Speaking for me only

At Daily Kos, Bob Johnson wrote a diary asserting that President Obama was a Blue Dog Dem and always was. I think what Bob meant to say was that President Obama was a Clinton Democrat. As regular readers know, this was a constant theme of mine for the past 3 years.

At Balloon Juice, dengre takes exception:

Sillier yet is the whole fresh meme that President Obama is also a secret Blue Dog. His adversaries must think he is like Batman with a cave filled with strange costumes for every occasion[.]

dengre is right. Obama is not a secret Blue Dog. He is proud Clinton Democrat. Always was.

Speaking for me only

Meteor Blades discusses the decision of GOP governors to turn down federal money for rail projects and how that money should and can be transferred to states eager to fund high speed rail projects, which got me to thinking how the New Federalism could really be a boon to progressivism. Consider the rail money that Republican governors want to turn down, Texas' flirting with withdrawing from Medicaid and Oregon governor-elect John Kithaber's potential state based health reform within the framework of the Affordable Health Care Act.

If President Obama wants to package a structure that could be beneficial to progressivism while seeming to be a moderate conservative, this New Federalism could be the way to go.

Speaking for me only

This post by Matt Yglesias is really funny to me:

Looks like Republicans aren’t going to back down on their threat to filibuster a defense appropriations bill unless it’s stripped of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal legislation, and it looks like Democrats are going to cave. [. . .] Filibustering defense appropriations bills is politically risky. And to do it in order to support a hugely unpopular position on a related issue is a giant risk. [. . .] But not only are [the GOP] getting away with the filibuster, they’re turning their obstruction into a political winner by forcing the progressive community into circular firing squad mode.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is amazing. It is a political winner, AS IT ALWAYS IS, because it fires up the GOP base AND let's the populace know that the GOP actually stands for something and will fight for what it believes.

This reminds me of the silly theories forwarded by Beltway Bloggers that George Bush was unpopular because he would not compromise. That is just plain stupid. George Bush was unpopular because his policies sucked. Not because he rammed them through. The stupidity in the Democratic Beltway is a constant. The embrace of the Post Partisan Unity Schtick by the Beltway Dems is why progressivism in the Democratic Party cannot triumph. We need new blood in the Beltway Dem Party.

Speaking for me only

One of the dumber things we do is speculation how a different President may have acted if they had been in President Obama's place. No one knows. That said, via Balloon Juice, this Dana Milbank column that plays the "what would Hillary have done?" game, misses the biggest what if - HOLC over HAMP. Milbank writes:

Clinton, for example, first called for a 90-day foreclosure moratorium in December 2007, as part of a package to fight the early stages of the mortgage crisis with a five-year freeze on subprime rates and $30 billion to avoid foreclosures. But an Obama campaign adviser dismissed Clinton's moratorium, saying it would "reward people for bad behavior."

Clinton's more important proposal was HOLC:

The CBO should run the numbers:

Some [Texas] Republican lawmakers — still reveling in Tuesday’s statewide election sweep — are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program.

It would certainly "save" money for Texas (I suppose the "folks dying" thing may have a cost.) But it would save the federal government even more:

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, estimates Texas could save $60 billion from 2013 to 2019 by opting out of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. [. . .] State Representative John M. Zerwas, Republican of Simonton, an anesthesiologist who wrote the bill authorizing the health commission’s Medicaid study, said [. . .] “Because of the substantial amount of matching money that comes from the federal government,” Mr. Zerwas said, “there’s an economic impact that comes from that. If we start to look at what that impact is, we have to consider whether it’s feasible to not participate.” State Senator Jane Nelson, Republican of Flower Mound, who heads the Senate Public Health Committee, said dropping out of Medicaid was worth considering — but only if it made fiscal sense without jeopardizing care. Currently, the Texas program costs $40 billion for a period of two years, with the federal government paying 60 percent of the bill.

(Emphasis supplied.) Sooo, Texas can save $60 billion and the federal government could save $90 billion. What's not to like? Except of course, all the people dying. But other than that, sounds great.

Speaking for me only

Markos takes apart the dishonest Third Way:

[Third Way]: [T]he liberal cognoscenti who dominate the Democratic Party have proclaimed that Tuesday’s debacle was caused by President Barack Obama and a Congress that didn’t move far enough left. If this argument prevails, it’s Mondale-vile for Democrats for a long time. Returns show, once again, that the voters who drive elections are self-identified moderates and independents, and largely middle class. They ran for the hills this cycle.

Let's see the exit polls. The crazy liberals in the House scared moderates into ... voting Democratic 55-42. Double digits. And as for those independents?

PPP asked independents who did vote in 2010 who they had supported in 2008. The results: Fifty one percent of independents who voted this time supported McCain last time, versus only 42 percent who backed Obama last time. In 2008, Obama won indies by eight percent.

(Emphasis supplied.) The biggest problem with The Third Way is not that they are wrong, it is that they are liars. I do not want them in my Big Tent.

Speaking for me only