The Obamaquester according to Harry

Harry Reid's view of the sequester -- and how we got saddled with it -- has been seeping into the national political narrative in recent weeks. Notwithstanding his alleged renewed bonds and recent successful teamwork with Obama, his view is not a pretty picture for the president.

In Twitter exchanges with Greg Sargent and others -- I think Jonathan Bernstein and Brian Beutler -- I have sought a convincing account and analysis and possibly justification of the Obama administration's thinking at the fiscal cliff -- why Biden, with Obama's backing, cut in on Reid's negotiations with McConnell and settled for half a revenue loaf and only a short-term sequester postponement. I haven't found one. And today's somewhat triumphal narrative by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim of the Democrats' short-term shutdown victory -- a purported tale of renewed harmony and mutual trust -- also provides the opposite of what I've sought: Reid's indictment of Obama's fiscal cliff conduct.

 He complained that Vice President Joe Biden had undercut fiscal cliff negotiations at the end of 2012, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was offered a more generous deal on tax revenue and sequester spending than Reid felt he could have crafted.
It didn't escape his notice, Reid said, that the deal Biden made conveniently postponed the budget cuts two months, or just long enough to allow the Inauguration and the State of the Union address to pass without the sequester's shadow. Senate Democrats had been pushing for a two-year delay and had been prepared to settle for just one.

What McConnell could cook up with Reid

Well, the rumors are flying thick and fast this Sunday, and this post probably won't be worth the pixels it's printed on. But based on Mitch McConnell's past dealmaking history, his acknowledged relative lack of leverage this time, and the drop-dead taboos against raising spending levels or taxes that a primary challenge imposes on him, I can't resist a bit of speculation as to what he may be cooking up with Reid (Dick Durbin called the talks between them a "breakthrough" today, though Reid himself has sounded far less sanguine).

Recall that the Budget Control Act negotiated by McConnell in the last days of July 2011 created a mechanism whereby the executive branch could raise the debt ceiling and Congress could register a vote of disapproval -- or override the hike with a two-thirds majority in both houses. That deal was end-stopped by the amount required to raise the debt ceiling high enough to get past the 2012 election; it ran out in March of this year.

Recall too that progressive éminence grise Norm Ornstein has floated an acceptable exception to the Dems' current no-concessions-for-debt-limit-hike stance: trade a single concession to end debt ceiling terrorism forever:

Another cliff, another cave?

Greg Sargent exhorts the Democrats not to fall for the GOP's sequester bluff:

Democrats are going to have to do a better job of spelling out precisely what the consequences of the sequester would be, so the public understands precisely what Republicans are willing to allow happen in to force the spending cuts they want.

The White House is starting to do that today, circulating a fact sheet that lays out in specific terms exactly what the sequester would do. A few examples: 2,100 fewer food inspections could occur. Seventy thousand kids kicked off Head Start. Ten thousand teacher jobs put at risk. Hundreds of thousands of seriously mentally ill adults could go untreated. Over $500 million in cuts to small business loan guarantees. Cuts to unemployment benefits — further harming the economy — and child nutrition. Etc.

I must confess, this fans an anger that's been brewing in me -- and I take that anger as evidence of a weakness in the Dem position. Obama and the Dems co-negotiated the sequester. Say if you like that they never intended for it to go into effect -- but they put themselves in a position to let it happen. Put another way, Obama and Biden, through the deal they cut at year's end in a last-minute override of Harry Reid, have let the leverage they had on Dec. 31 be reversed. More broadly, Obama has put us in this position through his serial unwillingness to force a confrontation -- in December 2010, in August 2011, and in Dec/Jan 2011-12. 

The next debt showdown...I see it!

This snippet from this evening's Plum Line roundup gave me deja vu:

* Steve Kornacki on why Republicans may cave in the end:

Much attention is paid to the way-out-there true-believers who have gained to power to define what conservatism means in the Obama-era. But there are still many Republicans in Congress – and in influential positions outside of Congress – who recognize the catastrophe that would be unleashed by a default. And in the wake of the November election, they may be more assertive in reining in the crazies now than they were during the debt ceiling showdown in 2011.

The flavor of this deja vu might be classed as optimistic preview.  The sentiment: Obama has the leverage: when he stares the GOP down, they'll be forced to... [add consummation to be wished].  As, for example, when Reid and McConnell were negotiating on December 28, three days before the fiscal cliff's edge, and Sargent eagerly anticipated the failure of those talks:

Uggh, my money is on McConnell

Yesterday, I wondered where Obama thinks he's going to get the leverage to insist that any future spending cuts be paired with further tax hikes. As reflected in today's Politico reporting, Obama and the GOP leadership are living in alternate universes. Obama thinks he's broken a psychological threshold along with the Republican no-new-taxes-taboo and that he can wield public opinion to make his all-spending-cuts-to-be-balanced-with-more revenue rule stick. McConnell & co. think they have Obama over a barrel with the debt ceiling and sequester cuts looming.

My money is on McConnell. Reid might have been a match for him. Obama and Biden weren't.  Agreeing to only a two-month postponement of the sequester cuts, McConnell's main demand, looks like a disaster -- unless Obama is ready to finally go over a cliff. The only precedent for that: he did let the sequester become law in the first place in late 2011, rather than intervene and strike another all-cuts-no-revenue bargain. That's a thin reed of hope.

What I can't see is Republicans agreeing to further tax hikes, e.g., through Obama's proposed 28% deduction cap for wealthy taxpayers.  They acceded to a very limited tax increase only under extreme duress -- when the only alternative was larger tax hikes. Their "principles" are therefore intact. The notion that a taboo was broken is nonsense.

The dangers of last-minute dealing

Greg Sargent is salivating at the prospect of Obama daring the Senate GOP to veto a stripped-down fiscal cliff bill that would raise marginal rates on the top two brackets and extend unemployment benefits, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit.  Jonathan Cohn, while acknowledging the dangers of going over the cliff, is cautiously optimistic that if we do so Obama will be able to a) impose a better deal, and b) blame Republicans for the deadlock:

And then there are the polls, which suggest that the public overwhelmingly blames Republicans, rather than Obama, for inaction. Polls don’t always predict how people will react to actual political developments in real time. But chances are good that, the longer it takes for a deal, the more pressure Republicans will feel from the voters—not to mention their supporters in the business community—to abandon their opposition to tax increases and determination to cut entitlements.

Obama's uncertain trigger finger

The debt ceiling deal negotiated today relies heavily on triggers for future action. The finger on the final trigger is the president's. Hence, from a progressive's point of view, the deal is only terrible if you mistrust the president.  Unfortunately, the way the deal went down makes it very hard to trust the president.

As Jonathan Chait has been pointing out for weeks, progressives are better off with a cuts-only deal, end-stopped by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on Dec. 31, 2012, than with the revenue-light grand bargain Obama was negotiating with Boehner. That deal would have raised only $800 billion in new revenue over ten years, roughly the amount that would be gained by letting the Bush cuts for the wealthiest 2% expire while leaving the bulk of the cuts in place. Expiration of all the Bush cuts, in contrast, would raise an estimate $3.6 trillion in new revenue of ten years.

The deal negotiated today calls for $900 billion agreed-on cuts in discretionary spending over 10 years and establishes a bipartisan committee of senators and MCs to propose a long-term plan that reduces the deficit by at least another $1.2 trillion. Congress must give that plan an up-or-down vote without amendments.  If the plan is voted down, or (I think) if the committee fails to agree on a proposal, that failure triggers $1.5 trillion in automatic spending cuts, split evenly (as of now) between domestic and defense spending. Ditto if the president vetoes the plan.  The Democrats failed to get tax increases included in the trigger, despite Harry Reid's announcement yesterday that they would not agree with a plan that failed to do so.

The trigger behind the trigger is the Bush tax cuts.  Obama, if he were a different person, could threaten to veto any any plan put forward by the committee that did not include tax reform yielding, say, $2 trillion in new revenue over ten years -- the amount proposed by Bowles-Simpson.  If no such plan materialized, and automatic cuts were triggered, he could also promise to veto any subsequent tax legislation that did not raise said $2 trillion (or whatever benchmark he chose). If no such legislation emerged, the Bush cuts would all expire, and the additional revenue, coupled with the triggered spending cuts, would put the budget in effective balance.

Obama is in fact indicating rather weakly he will use this this leverage:

Reid draws a line

For those who worry that Democrats will agree to an enforcement mechanism in any pending debt ceiling deal that will empower Republicans to cut spending again without any tax increases in the second phase, an important assurance from Harry Reid:

"We have a closet full of triggers, people have suggested dozens of them but even though earlier this week, I was sitting talking to Jack Lew about triggers for an hour and a half and we can't get Republicans to move on any trigger. We're not going to have cuts on more programs without some revenue - that is a line we've drawn in the sand," Reid said.

Next question: in phase 2, will Democrats trade the pending $3.6 trillion tax hike that would result from letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012 for some piddling amount of revenue, as Obama was prepared to do in a grand bargain with Boehner?

UPDATE: That didn't take long. Reid has signed off on a deal in which the triggers reportedly do not include new tax hikes. The only deterrent to prevent Republicans from rejecting the deficit reduction plan to be put forward by the Gang of 12, and so triggering automatic cuts, is to make half of those cuts in defense spending. And once again, with near-total victory nigh, Boehner is pushing back, insisting on fewer defense cuts in the trigger. 

Looks like another Dem cave, followed by another GOP balk, to be followed by further Dem concessions...

Obama picks his battleground

Those of us who have watched with distress a chastened post-election Obama revert to futile bipartisan gestures and gratuitous mea culpas have wondered what he would choose to take a stand on in the lame duck session, as Republicans move to stymie all meaningful action.  The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest? Didn't look like it, though the signals have shifted a bit in recent days. DADT?  Votes to bust a filibuster probably aren't there.

Today we have our answer. There is one battle Obama can't afford to lose -- and will lose if he defers it. That is ratification of the New START treaty with Russia.  The treaty is essential to national security, future nonproliferation efforts, United States credibility on the world stage, and, by extension, Obama's ability to conduct foreign policy.

Since Kyl's betrayal on Tuesday, I have wondered why Obama has not wrapped himself round with the six secretaries of state, seven STRATCOM commanders and five secretaries of defense who have voiced support for the treaty. Today he did that. And cleverly, he brought Ronald Reagan to the table where also sat James Baker, Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger, William Cohen, William Perry, Brent Scowcroft, Sam Nunn, along with his current national security team:

If we ratify this treaty, we’re going to have a verification regime in place to track Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons, including U.S. inspectors on the ground.  If we don’t, then we don’t have a verification regime -– no inspectors, no insights into Russia’s strategic arsenal, no framework for cooperation between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.  As Ronald Reagan said, we have to trust, but we also have to verify.  In order for us to verify, we’ve got to have a treaty.

I think that as with healthcare reform, Obama is going to go all out and get this one over the line.  Yesterday Dick Lugar laid out the blueprint: force senators to vote yea or nay on a treaty that the entire foreign policy establishment of the last thirty years not currently holding elective office supports:

"I'm advising that the treaty should come on the floor so people will have to vote aye or nay [even if there's no deal]," he said. "I think when it finally comes down to it, we have sufficient number or senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it."

Putting a Lugar to Jon Kyl's head

One gets wearily accustomed to Republicans destroying the country's financial viability with enormous tax cuts for the wealthy and skillfully defending those tax cuts to the (fiscal) death. As the ideological embodiment of the personal financial interests of the wealthiest 1% of Americans, that's what they're hired elected to do.

There's more than garden variety opportunism, however, in Jon Kyl's attempt to spike a vote on the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty in the lame duck session.  The administration has negotiated for months with Kyl, the Republican point man on this issue, and accommodated virtually all of his mostly bogus and mercenary demands for more spending on nuclear modernization and expanded commitment to missile defense.  In a reprise of Republican tactics in the healthcare battle, Kyl solemnly declared that a vote before year's end is not feasible, "given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization." To delay the vote until next year, when the Democratic majority shrinks from 59 to 53 and a whole new round of hearings would be required, is to kill the treaty.

No one needs me to make the case for a treaty supported by seven former commanders of U.S. Strategic Command, six former secretaries of state, five former defense secretaries, and a partridge in a pear tree. In brief, New START gets U.S. weapons inspectors back into Russia,  it continues the nuclear force reduction in an equitable manner, it gives both countries nonproliferation credibility, it has enabled and will continue to enable U.S.-Russian cooperation on vital issues such as restraining Iranian weapons development, and it unquestionably leaves the U.S. free to pursue that probably worthless Republican shibboleth, missile defense.  End of story. Only cranks, crackpots and Kyle vile opportunists oppose it.  In support, see George Schultz, Madeline Albright, Gary Hart and Chuck Hagel here, Brent Scowcroft here, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton here, Henry Kissinger here, and thirty foreign policy grandees from both parties here.  (Opposed: a notorious war criminal and Dr. Strangelove.)


Initial reports suggested that Kyle's opposition would effectively kill the treaty. But I am heartened. Some antibodies remain in the system.  A full-court press is on. Gates, Clinton, Kerry, Lugar. In particular, Lugar's pressure on fellow Republicans -- and direct bid to put some spine in Obama and other Democrats -- seems vital:

Unreal city: the Democrats frame a debate

Last week, I noted that Democrats' aggressiveness in pursuit of their FinReg bill was positively affecting news coverage -- specifically, that their rapid pushback against McConnell's claims that the bill enabled future bailouts was shaping the coverage. 

While the Times is hardly representative, the tenor of its coverage of McConnell's "bailout" charge last week  changed dramatically from the online report on Wednesday afternoon last week to the Thursday print story, which took in Obama and Gibbs' response to McConnell.

Today, as the Republicans blocked debate on the bill, the Times again gave the framing to the Democrats:

At the Capitol, Senate Democratic leaders stepped up pressure on Republicans, and at an unusual news conference, they showed video clips of Republican leaders leveling what the Democrats said were false criticisms of the bill.

At the news conference, Mr. Reid suggested that Republicans were stalling and expressed doubt that the negotiations would yield any agreement.

Republicans have said that renewed talks are yielding progress that could lead to an agreement, but neither Democrats nor Republicans have pointed to any concrete changes that had been agreed to in recent days.

“Every indication is that the chairman and the ranking member are making progress in their discussions, and that this bill will have needed improvements,” Mr. McConnell said in a speech on Thursday.

Mr. Reid, however, noted that Democrats had tried for two months to reach a deal with Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, and another month working with Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who is also on the committee. If Republicans are ready to deal, he said, they should agree to begin debate.

“I’m not going to waste any more time of the American people,” Mr. Reid said.

Does the public option rest on a thin Reid?

Pre-gaming the Harry Reid-led meetings to merge the Senate Finance Committee bill and the HELP bill, Ezra Klein highlights an important inflection point for the public option:

If Reid decides to put a public option, or some sort of public option compromise, into the bill, then it would require 60 senators to remove it on the floor, and only 41 senators to defend it. Conversely, if he decides to leave the public option fight for the floor, then it will take 60 senators to add it into the bill, and only 41 to block it. That means that groups who see an issue decided in their favor during the blend have a huge advantage over groups that are left to fight it out on the floor.

Of course, if Reid and his gang of 3-4 do include a public option (or some ghost of one) in the bill they bring to floor debate, and thus make it difficult to remove the public option on the floor, it will still ultimately take 60 senators to achieve cloture and bring any bill to a vote in the Senate.

Heretical thought of the day

Why is it so hard for Democrats to stand up against Bush on FISA legislation? Many senators have made the point that the FISA law as it existed prior to the passing of the Protect America Act last summer needs only minor fixes, most notably to allow warrantless tapping of calls outside the U.S. that pass through the U.S. In response to the pressure to pass new legislation before the expiration of the PAA, it's been easy to point out that the expanded wiretapping authority granted by the PAA does not expire until next summer.

So why the rush to roll over? Why did the Senate pass a bill that grants full telecom immunity and provides no meaningful oversight? Democrats don't seem to lack for effective messaging to insulate them against 'soft on terror' smears:

"Their true concern here is not national security," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. "Rather they want to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program." (Courtesy of Daily Kos's redoubtable McJoan).

Nor is it difficult at this moment to stare down the President's fear-mongering about the consequences of allowing the PAA to expire. Here is Senator Ted Kennedy on Bush's latest ultimatum:

Think about what we’ve been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

That's a pretty effective rejoinder. So why didn't more Democratic senators take this tack? It's not just a matter of not wanting to stick it to the telcos for acceding to Bush Administration demands for data, since the Senate rejected a proposal from Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) that would have made the government stand in as defendant in those suits.

Can the senators still be so afraid of Bush's 'soft on terror' smears? Or so beholden to telecom lobbying dollars? It would seem that rather than running for political cover, those opposed to expanding the executive branch power of surveillance would be able to make political hay out of the Bush Administration's lawlessness: PAA opponents have laid out hors d'oeuvre trays full of potent sound bites.

That's why I can't quite shake the suspicion that there may be more to the Dem senators' repeated rollovers than meets the eye. What do they fear might come out in litigation against the telecom companies? Or what surveillance powers demanded by the Administration do they fear not to grant, and why?