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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (94342)	11/6/2008 12:20:57 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541627

John; It's the issue that will determine whether much legislation can be passed. Gosh, you know I think a filibuster proof senate is not a good thing. Better to have some checks and balances and this is just about the only one left. We still don't know what Obama is going to introduce. If it is great ideas, republicans are cutting their own throats to filibuster them and this will be used against them next election. If some wacky ideas come up - well let the republicans filibuster them then. More pragmaticly speaking, the ideas proposed will be designed in a way to get the republicans to go along - not a bad idea in these times. steve

To: JohnM who wrote (94342)	11/6/2008 2:32:04 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541627

I just happened upon this while I had your post in another window. Offered FWIW. No one here but us chickens . . . Today really, truly, will be budget day here at Asymmetrical Information, the last one having been derailed by a five hour doctor's visit. One thing that struck home last night, as I was sitting on a dinner panel about the next four years, is that their huge majority, combined with budget constraints, actually poses one big problem for the Democrats: no one to torpedo their electoral promises for them. The Democrats right now are divided into deficit hawks, who think that the nearly $1 trillion deficit headed down the pike means they can't afford any big programs, and the big spenders, who say to hell with the deficit, let's spend as much as we can to make it look like we're really doing something. More on this later. But one wrinkle that hadn't seemed as important as it now does is that the Democrats do not have the luxury of proposing unpassable legislation in order to look like they're doing something. They can't make good on Obama's electoral promises about global warming by putting up a program the Republicans hate enough to take down, because there aren't enough Republicans to credibly blame for the bill's destruction. So they either have to actually pass a carbon bill that will be massively unpopular when it raises energy prices, or explain why Obama didn't really mean it. That almost certainly means, at least according to the crack political team on the panel with me, that we will not get any sort of cap and trade--an outcome that probably could have been predicted when gas hit $4. But it makes even potentially popular things like Obama's health care plan and middle class tax cuts problematic. The middle class tax cuts are, as far as I can tell, already stillborn; in today's revenue environment, even reversing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy probably wouldn't pay for them. But once the electorate finds out that the Democrats will not be handing out free money, not because the Republicans stopped them, but because they stopped themselves, they're going to find themselves mired in a very difficult discussion. Interest rates, sovereign debt problems, and the debt substitution effect do not make good sound bytes. meganmcardle.theatlantic.com