Centrist Dems Continue Slowly Deflating the President's Budget
It started last week, when an influential group of Senate Democrats began signaling to the Obama administration that its $3.55 trillion 2010 budget bites off more than they'd like to be chewing.
The centrist Dems threw up plenty of red flags, from Obama's decision to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans in 2011 to the inclusion of climate change in the budget as an $80 billion-plus revenue raiser. And the most powerful member of this group is Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who quipped to The Hill yesterday that anyone who thinks the votes are there for Obama's budget is "smoking something."
That Conrad is joining the cadre of centrists putting the brakes on the White House budget isn't surprising -- he was also a skeptic of the stimulus -- but it is disheartening for anyone hoping for action on carbon emissions this year.
Conrad and his committee's ranking Republican, lapsed Commerce Secretary-designate Judd Gregg (NH), are singing from the same hymnal in criticizing carbon emissions regulations as too costly in the bad economy, handing the GOP a major cudgel to hit the forthcoming cap-and-trade climate bill when it emerges later on this year.
Josh
Elana
Matt
Eric
The key question is, how many of these turncoats are there? Obama only needs 50 votes (including Franken) plus Biden to pass the budget.
March 11, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think "turncoats" is too strong a term. Most of them are merely misguided and not very smart. I could get onboard with "asswipes," however.
March 11, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm happy to compromise on "asswipes". See, we CAN all get along! ;)
March 11, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about "misguided recalcitrants?"
March 11, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, that's you.
March 11, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you just say "I know you are but what am I?"
March 11, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why no, I didn't. I'm a correctly-guided recalcitrant. ;)
March 11, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
They certainly are asswipes, but they are not at all misguided. What they are is willing whores for the special interests of the predator class. They see their job as protecting those interests that got us into this mess. They have been servicing them for years and despite the catastrophic change in our economic system and the environment they want to keep things the way they have always been. Perhaps a good combination would be asswipes and whores?
March 11, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
We deserve a better explanation for why "farmers" with incomes over $500,000 need government subsidies than Senator Conrad's bald because-that's-the-deal-we-struck-last-year argument.
We also deserve a better explanation for why carbon-emitting business need tax relief as part of a cap and trade program. As I see it, these business have been subsidized by the government for years because they've been allowed to profit from polluting without paying the cost to human health and our environment. There may be a good argument here. Its possible that these are well-regulated utilities providing necessary services and that added costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers. That argument needs to be made though and skeptically critiqued.
March 11, 2009 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The answer to both questions of course, is that both groups contribute generously to Sen. Conrad's re-election campaigns. Our pay-to-play "democracy" in action!
March 11, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. Agribusinesses and power companies: I'm sure the good senator from the midwest is concerned only about the welfare of our nation and not at all about his campaign contributions.
March 11, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
we are talking about 3.5 million million dollars.
does thinking twice about that make one a turncoat?
March 11, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
It certainly makes one an asswipe, when there was none of that thinking twice about the Iraq war, or about military waste in general.
March 11, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm really getting soooo tired of this argument. Because Bush pissed away billions, therefore we need to do the same?
Just for perspective, $3.5T is 25% of GDP. That would put us in similar company with Sweeden, Denmark, France and The Netherlands, but their budget also includes health care. Going back to at least 1960, the US has never had a government budget exceeding 19%.
Our capacity to borrow and spend money is not unlimited. The recent stimulus bill was less than $400B per year, so most of this $3.5T is other things. It's Congress' job to ask what we're spending our money on and whether we're getting value for that money. Yet to hear people talk, the last eight years is an excuse to spend unlimited amounts of money on everything we think is a good idea. There are limits.
March 11, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
That depends on why they are publicly voicing their criticisms. If you read the The Hill article referenced above, you'll see that Senator Conrad's objections to the budget don't appear to be based on fiscal restraint. He wants more money for power companies, and he wants to preserve funding for agribusinesses. Those are two obvious constituencies for a senator from the midwest. I suppose that I can't complain too strenuously about him supporting his constituencies; that's a senator's job. Still, if he's publicly attacking the Obama administration, and helping empower Republicans, to serve special interests that contribute to him, then I think "turncoat" is a fair label.
March 11, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another example of the "not too bright crowd" who have no vision for the future of this country beyond political staging for re-election efforts. Just think of all the stupid fights that will be coming up...universal health care, EFCA, 2010 budget, Sen. Franken, etc...let's hope someone shakes these turds up!
March 11, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
These guys should be ostracized by the DSCC.
March 11, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real problem is that the stuff that actually helps people -- health insurance that actually covers individuals' health claims -- always gets cut. It always gets cut. Meanwhile Conrad and the gang insist on things that always benefit entities that least need government (large farms, for example).
I would love to say the Obama budget is too big. If I thought that the health care piece would remain and I thought the legal aid to the poor would remain and I thought funding for energy projects would remain and I thought key transportation assistance would remain, I would be fine with cutting parts of the budget. The problem is that these pieces always get cut and the large corporate farms get their subsidies.
Once we have Franken, we'll be in a better place. But, fifty for Obama's first budget is going to be tough.
March 11, 2009 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm betting that out of 59 Dems we probably can get 50 for something that, while compromised somewhat, isn't radically different from Obama's draft. So I'm not feeling too bad at this point. But I just hope Obama understands that the goal should indeed be getting the best budget that can be passed (even if just barely), not trading substance for additional, meaningless votes.
March 11, 2009 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think doing health care and energy in the same year is going to be tough; but he's got a strong hand in the house and if he fights for this he can have a strong hand nationally.
It's discouraging; but expected. I just hope they don't make the same mistake as they did with the stimulus and let this get defined as an economic downer.
March 11, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Need to do a better job in marketing, yes. Maybe the Cantor-and-Limbaugh have nothing to offer us meme can be of some use (thanks for your kind guidance, Mr. Carville).
March 11, 2009 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's amazing, by the way, how little institutional the Democratic caucuses (especially in the Senate) seem to have. Last time they hamstrung a newly-elected Democratic President it was Bill Clinton, and how did the ensuing off-year election work out for them back then?
March 11, 2009 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Institutional memory, that is.
March 11, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here we are in a situation where it's rapidly becoming clear the risk is in doing too little, not in doing too much -- that, if anything, the Obama administration may not have gone far enough -- and these morons are trying to do even less. With "friends" like these...
March 11, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The weird part is that I don't think a lot of this comes from either gutlessness or venal parroting of the interests of contributors. Conrad strikes me as a pretty upright guy as politicians go, and he's not dumb. What he is, however, is representative of a class of legislators who just don't have much breadth of knowledge or vision to transcend the siren song of "common sense" and truth from the gut.
Montana's coal industry (no. 5 in the nation) is an automatic winner if we have mandated significant reductions in CO2 emissions. The coal extraction is so much cheaper, easier and cleaner in the western plains states that the Appalachian coal fields can only exist because national demand is so high. If coal demand drops, Kentucky and West Virginia take the hit, not Wyoming (which now produces a whopping 40% of U.S. coal out of a mere 20 mines) or Montana. In the west, you scrape off a few feet of dirt on a plain and you expose a seam of almost pure carbon that is 10, 20, even 30 feet think. In Kentucky and West Virginia, you have to burrow into a mountain, or take off the top half of it, to get to a seam that may be 18 inches thick.
The more coal production Appalachian coal production drops, the more the production infrastructure dries up and the less competitive it becomes compared to out west.
If Rockefeller and Byrd join McConnell and the loon in going ballistic over carbon reduction, cut them some slack. Carbon reduction will devestate employment in their already tragically poor states and the possibility that getting the coal industry out of the region's politics and economy will improve things is a thin reed, indeed.
But for Senators of either party from Wyoming or Montana to oppose carbon caps is just stupidly reactionary.
March 11, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry for the typos and spelling errors. I shoudn't try to do stuff like this on a pda.
March 11, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're all thumbs!
But thanks for the thoughtful comments.
March 11, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems that all those trying to trash Obama's atempts to stop the downward and turn to productive are only doing so for their own personal greed and grandstanding.
These individuals are either keeping themselves wilfully ignorant or do not have the capacity to understand anything above economics 101: they are all elected officials with plenty of help from the media clowns. For them it doesn't matter how outrageous their oral output, their audience will be screaming for more.
Are the times not tough enough for people to come together like they do naturally during disaster?
March 11, 2009 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you call them *centrists*? These people are right of center by a good bit and may yet form their own blue dog coalition in the senate if bayh has his way.
March 11, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a quibble, Elena -- opposing letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire isn't "deflating." Since the tax cuts were written to expire in order for the budget that included them to fit under budget rules, opposing it the complete opposite of the "fiscal responsibility" the Blue Dogs frequently pretend is their motivation.
March 11, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink