David Brooks writes:

Most important, public sector unions help choose those they negotiate with. Through gigantic campaign contributions and overall clout, they have enormous influence over who gets elected to bargain with them, especially in state and local races.

(Emphasis supplied.) With regard to corporations that do business with governments, David Brooks has not only not expressed similar concern, he has shown disdain for such concerns.

Indeed, if Brooks REALLY believed what he wrote, he would be a staunch opponent of privatization. Privatization creates even greater risks of creating situations where entities are "choosing those they negotiate with." More . . .

CNN:

The current funding law expires March 4th and lawmakers are attempting to reach a short-term deal before leadership works out a more permanent resolution. [. . .] On Saturday the House passed a Republican measure to cut federal spending by $61 billion below current levels, which is $100 billion below the president's budget request for 2011 that was never enacted.

[. . .] Schumer said Democrats already agreed to $41 billion in cuts below the president's 2011 budget request – which is roughly the same as 2010 levels – and are now preparing "an emergency stop-gap measure to keep the government going so there's not a shutdown." "What we're proposing is that for a short time – a couple of weeks – we continue that $41 billion level while House and Senate negotiators come up somewhere in the middle," he said. "We are saying, 'Negotiate,' and they're saying, 'Do it my way' before any negotiations even begin."

Cut taxes on the rich in December 2010. Then cuts government services to all other Americans in March 2011. Congratulations Grover Norquist! You're the big winner! Now let's see how much you have won . . .

Speaking for me only

If you care about deficits, you have raise taxes, particularly on the well off. Paul Krugman writes:

The current Obama budget calls for defense spending of 3.4% of GDP by 2016; you can make the case that the number should be closer to 2%. But that’s not enough to avoid hard choices about health care and revenue. If you can’t see how it’s possible both to believe that we waste a lot of money on the military, and to believe that ending that waste would make only a modest contribution to our fiscal problem, I can’t help you.

While I generally agree with Krugman's point, by the same token, a hundred billion here and a hundred billion there and all of sudden you are talking about real money. But the point stands, the biggest impediment to addressing the deficit remains our tax policy. When Democrats give up on tax policy, as President Obama did when he made The Deal, what's left is Grover Norquist's dream, drowning government in a bathtub.

Speaking for me only

An issue I have thundered about for some time, with particular intensity during The Deal. The most progressive legislation of the last 20 years was the 1993 tax bill in which Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress, with precisely ZERO support from Republicans, raised taxes on the rich and cut them for the working poor. To this day, this progressive achievement remains undervalued. Here is Scott Lemeiux:

NAFTA, welfare reform, the FMLA, the 1993 budget, the omnibus crime bill, DOMA, the line item veto, the death penalty/habeas corupus atrocity, the Brady Bill[. . . T]hose who are inclined to be nostalgic about Clinton when evaluating Obama should look carefully at that list.

(Emphasis supplied.) I do look at that list and think that it reveals a very serious shortcoming in the first two years of the Obama Presidency - his refusal to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Clinton raised taxes on the rich. Obama extended tax cuts for the rich. The heart of the deficit discussions going on today are laid at the feet of The Deal. Too many Beltway Blogger types want you to ignore that fact. But they are not hesitant to tell you what a bad guy Wisconsin governor Walker is because he, you guessed it, cut taxes. Many echo this reasoning from The Deal supporter The New York Times' editorial page:

I still have not had a chance to delve into the substance and specifics of the "Battle of Wisconsin," but I am struck by the fact that whether purposefully or not, the Republican and Democratic parties are stumbling into a class based political battle. Even President Obama has gotten into the act:

President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals. Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

This is very unObama-like. The Republican Party seems eager to take the other side of this battle:

As Florida did last year, This happens:

Gov. Rick Scott announced Wednesday that he's rejecting federal funding for high-speed rail. "I'm not comfortable this is a project we should be doing," Scott said at a hastily called news conference in Tallahassee after a phone conversation with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. [. . .] Scott said he was not sure high-speed rail would bring taxpayers a return on their investment and he felt money would be better spent on state highway and seaport improvements.

The problem for Scott is the money is not his to decide how to use. It is the federal government's money and they will use it elsewhere. Florida Republicans and Democrats are not happy:

Sounds interesting and outside the party apparatus.

Is it arrogance or stupidity that leads a Congressman to email a shirtless photo of himself to a woman who posts on a Craig's List dating forum, using his real name but lying about his age, occupation and his marital status?

After Gawker exposed Republican Congressman Christopher Lee today, he immediately resigned from Congress. Is anybody else wondering whether the Craig's List encounter isn't just the tip of the proverbial iceberg?

Ezra Klein writes:

If the Affordable Care Act isn't as stable as it could be, every state will want the power to modify the plan so it'll work better for them. Some will take advantage of that power by adding an individual mandate. Some will try out various conservative theories of how best to structure the bill. Some, like Vermont, will try to push towards single payer. And those that do nothing will act as a control group to a grand health-care policy experiment -- though not, I think, to the benefit of their residents. [. . .] the practical effect will be of making the legislation very similar to the federalist ideas I mentioned earlier in the week.

There is political merit in this approach. Consider this from The Hill:

Matt Miller:

"Good afternoon, I'm Brian Williams reporting from Washington, where it looks like October 26, 2017, will be a day that truly goes down in history. In a few moments, at a table not far from where I now stand, President Hillary Clinton will sign into law the universal health-care legislation - "Medicare for All," as she calls it - that completes a journey Mrs. Clinton began nearly 25 years ago. [. . .] Who would have thought then - or later, when President Barack Obama's big health reform was overturned by the Supreme Court in a controversial 5 to 4 ruling in 2012 - that today's bipartisan bill would be the result? For some perspective on the twists and turns of history, we're joined by NBC's David Gregory. David, health reform seemed dead in the water in 2012. How did we get from that Supreme Court ruling to today?"

If life were only like this. As DemfromCt says, "Anyone else want what he's smoking?"

Speaking for me only

A recommended dkos diary asks why Democrats are defending it. Earlier, I asked a similar question.

Yet, I've spent the past few days defending the constitutionality of the mandate. Why am I doing that? Beyond the fact that the mandate is in fact constitutional, I think there is a larger issue at stake - the radical right wing drive to delegitimize and "deconstitutionalize" government action.

Similarly, when Kelo v.New London was decided, the kneejerk "progressive" response was to excoriate the decision. I argued that not only was the decision correct, it was also progressive:

[The dissent] simply has no support in the jurisprudence or in common sense. Indeed, it is the heart of the dangerous jurisprudence of the narrow readings of the civil rights amendments and laws by the Conservative wing of the Court. Always these Conservatives demand "findings" of past institutional discrimination by the state. Always, the Conservatives seek to limit the power of the State to act for the public good. This is more of the same. It is bad stuff. I believe that the Majority properly applied existing jurisprudence in a principled AND properly progressive way.

"First principles" matter. Not everything is sui generis.

Speaking for me only

I find the arguments from the decision striking down the individual mandate to be ludicrous, but this Ezra Klein post makes me think twice about my views of the GOP strategy to undermine the health bill:

The resulting policy [after a successful GOP obstruction} isn't too hard to imagine. Think something like opening Medicare to all Americans over age 45, raising Medicaid up to 300 percent of the poverty line, opening S-CHIP to all children, and paying for the necessary subsidies and spending with a surtax on the wealthy (which is how the House originally wanted to fund health-care reform). That won't get us quite to universal health care, but it'll get us pretty close. And it'll be a big step towards squeezing out private insurers, particularly if Medicaid and Medicare are given more power to control their costs.

Where do I sign up for this result?

Speaking for me only