The latest Senate Gang wants to cut Social Security and Medicare, and eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. Matt Yglesias is keen to increase the tax on health insurance.

Tim Geithner is thrilled about this kind of talk:

Mr. Geithner said “[. . . I]f you listen carefully now, you see the leadership of the United States of America, the president, the Republican leadership in both houses and the Democrats recognizing now that [. . .] we have to put in place now reforms that bring down our long-term deficits in ways that’ll help strengthen future growth. And that’s incredibly important recognition by people and we’d like to put something in place as soon as we can so we can begin that process.”

Funny, Mr. Geithner was not that concerned about deficits when he was touting tax cuts for the rich when The Deal was passed in December. The gamble by the Obama Administration, spearheaded by Mr. Geithner, is that the economy will be in good shape in 2012, so promises of long term reductions won't affect the President's reelection chances. That seems delusional to me. Time will tell.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias:

[I]t seems to me that it’ll be difficult for Pelosi to hold House Democrats together [on insisting on a clean debt ceiling increase bill] unless the White House also takes a firm line on the issue.

Yes, this is true. Indeed, it is true about almost every bill actually. The President is not quite as impotent as some would like you to think at times.

Speaking for me only

I've always wanted to use Atrios' line as a title and Roger Ebert's review of the new movie "Atlas Shrugged," yes based on the Ayn Rand work, gives me the excuse. From Ebert's review:

But you’re thinking, railroads? Yes, although airplanes exist in this future, trains are where it’s at. When I was 6, my Aunt Martha brought me to Chicago to attend the great Railroad Fair of 1948, at which the nation’s rail companies celebrated the wonders that were on the way. They didn’t quite foresee mass air transportation. "Atlas Shrugged" seems to buy into the fair’s glowing vision of the future of trains. Rarely, perhaps never, has television news covered the laying of new railroad track with the breathless urgency of the news channels shown in this movie.

Read the whole thing.

Two reactions to a David Brooks column from the progressive side remind me of the deep divide on policy regarding health insurance amongst progressives and Democrats; a divide that Ed Kilgore detailed back during the "public option/exchanges" debate. First Dean Baker:

The fourth [Ryan and Brooks'] belief assumes that there are no areas where the government can possibly do things better than the market. Ryan and Brooks may not understand this point, so I will explain.

If the government can provide a service like health care insurance or retirement pensions more efficiently than the private sector, as a vast body of evidence suggests [. . . then] Ryan['s] Medicare proposal would add more than $30 trillion to the country's health care costs over Medicare's 75-year planning period. This amount, which reflects the pure increase in costs, not the shift from the government to beneficiaries, is almost 6 times the projected shortfall in the Social Security program.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now read Ezra Klein:

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing great -- greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources. - FDR's First Inaugural Address

And why shouldn't he be? He has won. Since December, he has been on a roll.

In December, after The Deal, I wrote "[a]t this point, Barack Obama's legacy will be the enabling of the GOP's Norquist strategy to demolish the social safety net. The Deal is the first step."

Yesterday was the second step. I wrote in December that Part 2 of The Deal is spending cuts.

Part 3 will be an attempt to undo the New Deal.

Speaking for me only

Not that this is a serous question. The victory for Boehner was so complete, that even Ezra Klein noticed:

Boehner, of course, could afford to speak plainly. He’d not [only] just won the negotiation but had proven himself in his first major test as speaker of the House. He managed to get more from the Democrats than anyone had expected, sell his members on voting for a deal that wasn’t what many of them wanted and avert a shutdown. There is good reason to think that Boehner will be a much more formidable opponent for Obama than Gingrich was for Clinton.

So why were Reid and Obama so eager to celebrate Boehner’s compromise with his conservative members? The Democrats believe it’s good to look like a winner, even if you’ve lost. But they’re sacrificing more than they let on. By celebrating spending cuts, they’ve opened the door to further austerity measures at a moment when the recovery remains fragile. Claiming political victory now opens the door to further policy defeats later.

(Emphasis supplied.) Boehner may be more formidable than Gingrich. It is hard to tell because Obama is no Clinton when it comes to political bargaining.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias writes:

Why are Democratic leaders so spineless? Ezra Klein points to persuasive polling evidence that the Democratic [constituency] likes it that way [. . .] A more general point I would make about this is that left-wing intellectuals and writers often write as if left-wing intellectuals and writers are “the base” of the Democratic Party, then observe that the leaders of the Democratic Party aren’t very left-wing, and then write about the phenomenon of the Democratic Party leaders’ ignoring their base. [. . .]

(Emphasis supplied.) That's true. But Yglesias ignores the pundits who rationalize, defend, and even urge, spinelessness by Democratic leaders. I happen to not think much of the poll result that Ezra and Yglesias are trumpeting (what does that poll really mean?), but it is telling to me that that it is used to buttress the general Ezra Klein line that Dems should be spineless in their political bargaining with Republicans. Obviously I disagree with that strategy. But my point is Yglesias implies that it is only "base claiming" pundits that make unfounded claims of "support." But the Beltway Bloggers and Pundits do it too.

Speaking for me only

The New York Times examines what agencies will be affected by a government shutdown.

What happens to the federal courts? How long can they stay function? What about court-appointed counsel? Will the defendants' cases proceed? If not, can they get a dismissal on speedy trial grounds? A few weeks ago, I got this notice from the Chief judges of the federal district and bankruptcy court in Nebraska. Clearly, they have been thinking about it.

Members of the Bar,

The district and bankruptcy courts have approved contingency plans should Congress fail to enact an appropriations bill or continuing resolution before April 8. If the federal government shuts down after April 8 because appropriations have lapsed, the Judiciary will continue normal operations for approximately two weeks using emergency funds. Thereafter, judges will continue to hear and decide cases; however, court support staff may be reduced to mission-essential activities.

In the meantime, court operations will continue as usual. Further information will be disseminated if and when necessary.

Things are going to get interesting. I still think a budget will pass by Friday.

Paul Krugman discussing Yves Smith's post on Elizabeth Warren:

My general view of politics and policy is that there are no saints and no geniuses; place too much faith in anyone, and you’re bound to be let down. But there are villains, and they need to be fought.

Words to live by. And yes, this does provide me with an excuse to again post my refrain, pols are pols and do what they do:

Citing Matt Yglesias, Paul Krugman writes:

[T]he only way we’ll get any budget deal now — or, I’d say, any time in the next several years — will be if conservatives come up with an offer. And they won’t.

[. . . W]hat Republicans want is for Obama to propose [spending] cuts– and therefore to take the political heat — while they give up nothing whatsoever. Not going to happen.

(Emphasis supplied.) Krugman is entirely too sanguine about this. Time after time, the GOP's Norquist strategy has worked on Obama. The Deal in December being the most prominent. Unlike Krugman, I do not have confidence that Obama (especially with Tim Geithner being a key player) and the Dems will not propose spending cuts to key programs. After all, in the ongoing budget negotiations, they have done so already. Obama and the Dems have proven to be inept political bargainers

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias, who is blogging great stuff of late, writes:

Peter Bergen argues that the intervention in Libya is no invasion of Iraq:

[T]he military intervention that President Obama authorized against Libya on Saturday — eight years to the day after President George W. Bush announced the commencement of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” — is a quite different operation than the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [. . .]

Granting all that follows for the sake of argument, isn’t this a strange way for Iraq to impact the structure of debate? Is “less misguided than the invasion of Iraq” really a reasonable standard for policy to aspire to?

Indeed, it is not. Similarly, commenter ABG (whose honesty is bracing and makes good points as well, though not this time imo) argues that he is happy with the Dems because they are not as bad as the GOP: