So it’s come to this

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 6 Comments

You know the deal between President Obama and Republican congressmen to extend the Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 is real, because the New York Times is trying lamely to justify it. They make an okay point. David Leonhardt argues that the extension of unemployment benefits, the cut in payroll taxes and the various credits for college tuition and whatnot amount to another stimulus package. He’s right, in the sense that it costs $900 billion and hopefully the economy will get better after we do it. On the other hand, the original stimulus package didn’t blow $120 billion on the wealthiest 2% of Americans at a time when those Americans were convincing their poorer, fatter brethren to demonstrate in the streets about the federal deficit. And that’s what it is about the Obama tax cut agreement: it seems like a pretty good deal, provided you don’t think about American politics over the last two years.

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Senate continues its transition to world’s largest body of hostages

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 4 Comments

And all it takes to stop it is one man! Or woman. Not a black guy, though.

Remember back in high school, when we learned about the orderly progress of a bill through the legislative branch and/or how to express our feelings sexually, and I learned the first one? It seemed so simple back then: a bill began its metamorphosis into law when it got a majority of votes in the House and then the Senate, and it emerged a beautiful butterfly for the President to sign or subject to the hungry barn owl of veto. Even then, the Senate could pass it again with a two-thirds majority. That was the old US Senate. In the new Senate, a two-thirds majority is what you need to pass any bill at all. This system is great, since it frees up the senators to pursue A) negotiating various para-legislative compromises to get the aforementioned sixty votes and B) personal projects. Item (B) is what occupies Senator Herb Kohl (D–WI) lately, which is why he’s decided to block confirmation of nominated DEA chief Michele Leonhart. Yes, that’s a “D” next to his name. He learned it from watching you, Dad.

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Kyl plans to torpedo arms treaty

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, rehearsing here for his "Mr. Kyl" puppet show

In a surprise move that angered the White House and delighted nuclear weapons fans, Senate Minority Whip Jon “The License Plate” Kyl has announced that he will block a vote on the New Start treaty during the lame duck session of Congress. The treaty would have capped US and Russian nuclear arsenals and restored inspections to both countries, which lapsed last year for the first time since the Cold War. It was also widely regarded as an important step in improving relations with Russia, which country happens to hold a lot of influence over A) transport routes to Afghanistan and B) the ongoing effort to keep Iran* from developing nuclear weapons. Those sound like two compelling American interests, right there, but Kyl is concerned that the whole thing might be a little rushed. After months of negotiations, he announced that he would block cloture, “given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to Start and modernization.”

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Okay, says NY Times, you fix the budget

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 3 Comments

In the wake of last week’s report from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform—and the cascade of agreements with all the fiscal responsibility proposed therein, except for cuts to defense, social security, Medicare and most tax exemptions—the New York Times has produced this fun puzzle. It invites readers to construct their own balanced federal budgets by adopting or declining a series of cuts, including to foreign and state aid, federal workforces and defense. You can see my own personal Keynesian, soak-the-rich plan here. It balances the budget mostly by returning tax rates to Clinton-era levels and getting the fudge out of Central Asia/space, and it preserves Medicare and farm subsidies. Apparently I am some sort of secret communist, which is why I encourage you to make a budget of your own. Either that or you could rail passionately against every spending cut you can think of, plus tax increases of any sort, while simultaneously demanding a balanced budget immediately. Just put on your American flag shirt and yell directly at the numbers.

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Greene loses!

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 1 Comment

Democratic Senate hopeful Alvin Greene suffered a heartbreaking upset yesterday in South Carolina, losing to Republican Jim DeMint by the narrowest of 34-point margins. Across the country—as one New York Times writer described it, the “wide battleground that stretched from Alaska to Maine,” which I think means Canada—Greene’s surprise loss prefigured Republican gains, including a 60-seat pickup in the House of Representatives. “We’ve come to take our government back,” newly-elected Senator Rand Paul told his victory party. “They say that the U.S. Senate is the world’s most deliberative body. I’m going to ask them to deliberate on this: The American people are unhappy with what’s going on in Washington.” Mr. Paul then shouted an obscenity after an aide told him where the Senate is located.

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