Third Way Agrees With More Liberal Groups: Hooray for the Budget
Grassroots progressive groups are beginning to chime in with reactions to House and Senate Budget resolution, and they're all pretty positive. Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future (CAF) said, "The economic recovery package and this budget are needed to begin moving us in a dramatically different direction. This budget represents transformational change."
For a time, anyhow, CAF had dedicated itself to opposing the obstructive efforts of conservative Democrats in the Senate, and they may be encouraged by the fact that only two such Democrats (Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson) voted against the bill.
On the other side of the spectrum, I spoke earlier today with Matt Bennett, vice president for public affairs at Third Way. He said "Third Way strongly supports the budget, and we were delighted that it passed last night...we think the budget is a solid blueprint for economic recovery, fundamental reform and long-term fiscal responsibility."
Third Way has been broadly supportive of the efforts of the Senate centrists, most of whom voted with progressives to pass the budget. There's one interesting exception though. Bennett says, "we very respectfully disagree with Senator Bayh", who serves as one of Third Way's honorary co-chairs.
Late update: In the wake of the House and Senate budgets passing with the support of most Blue Dogs and the Moderate Dems Working Group, MoveOn is making it official--the group will continue its campaign against conservative Democrats. According to Greg Sargent:
MoveOn officials argue that the groups ran ads and calls pressuring key moderate, wavering Dems who eventually backed Obama's budget, including Senator Mark Warner, Rep Baron Hill and others. While it's unclear whether the ads swung their votes, MoveOn officials argue, they certainly didn't hurt the cause.Most of the liberal activists groups I've spoken with seem to be in something like "wait and see" mode vis-à-vis conservative Democrats. MoveOn appears to be the first to come forward to say they'll defy Democratic party leaders and continue their efforts.
As a caveat, it's important to note that conservative Senate Democrats accrue much of their power from the fact that most major legislation is subjected to the filibuster. The budget resolution, by contrast, is not--and if it was, Bayh and Nelson would have been well positioned to dramatically change its terms.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Oh good, that means Matt Yglesias is allowed to say nice things about the budget. ;)
April 3, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, just a shout out for the defense budget piece on the right. Gates is pissing off the entire defense industry and their supporters on the hill, by not releasing the budget until it's complete. No leaks. Also, he said a bunch of wasteful pork barrel defense programs are on the chopping block. Gates is the man. He is going to go down as one of the best defense secretaries. Only he could pull this off being appointed by the king and the republicans aren't whining about him being weak on defense, because he was a republican administrator. Brilliant move on obama's part, just brilliant.
All the progressives that were whining about keeping gates should take note. Only he could pull this one off and he is doing an awesome job.
April 3, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
good points all.
There are so many things in defense that we are wasting our money on--it would be nice to see it become more efficient.
April 3, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Easily a 100 billion in that budget is pork barrel spending, if not more, for republican campaign donors. You never hear mccain whining about that pork barrel spending and we are talking real money for that pork, not peanuts.
We need a lean and mean defense, not a bloated monolithic defense department that is still trying to fight wwIII against an imaginary enemy. It is really mind boggling the trillions of dollars wasted over the last 50 years. Trillions. Eisenhower was right in the 50's warning against the military industrial complex. It's a shame nobody paid attention.
April 3, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Listen to Michael. He's a nuclear weapons expert.
Seriously, remember how many people around here were in a state of high dudgeon that Obama was keeping Gates?
April 3, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone was. I thought you and I were the lone voices in the wilderness. It was absurd.
Luckily obama wasn't paying attention to the noise from the hard left. He wants to get stuff done, not make points. Getting stuff done is the number one priority. On defense, in order to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, he had to keep gates and I am sure he wanted to keep gates.
Luckily the king appointed gates, because in the long run he will totally help the country. The only smart thing that the king did as far as I can tell and I am sure that he was railroaded into doing it by the foreign policy and defense people from bush I's administration. The threat was that if you don't appoint gates, we will come out in droves lambasting your insanity.
April 3, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh with all due respect F BOTH OF YOU. I was leading the charge on keeping Gates. Specifically because he couldn't be criticized by Repubs check my history :-)
April 3, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are right. You lead the charge. I'm just estatic that he's there. One of obama's best moves among many good moves. I actually can't wait until the budget is released. It's almost like christmas. There will be all these stories about wingers whining about cancellation of ridiculous weapons programs. It will be awesome.
April 4, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I keep remembering that scene from "Dave" when he is talking about paying defense contractors on time even though they are late... Where exactly is it written that, because the Federal Government is paying the bill, workmanship is allowed to be shoddy? I'm referring to the infrastructure in Iraq, thank you Halliburton, where you can get electrocuted taking a shower. How can we not say, "We don't want this trailer, it's filled with formaldehyde and moreover, we aren't paying a red cent for it!"
Are they afraid no one will take the business otherwise? That's a stupid worry. It's not like we bargain for our prices or anything!
April 3, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink