Posts by Steve Benen

Steve Benen is "blogger in chief" of the popular Washington Monthly online blog, Political Animal. His background includes publishing The Carpetbagger Report, and writing for a variety of publications, including Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian. He has also appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," Air America Radio's "Sam Seder Show," and XM Radio's "POTUS '08."

Has Obama Done More Than Any Other President in Their First Year?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 30, 2009 at 4:28 AM.

President Obama's detractors on the right believe the president has racked up some accomplishments, all of them awful. The more widespread impression among news outlets and many who voted for the president is that Obama hasn't accomplished much at all.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg has a contrarian piece this weekend, arguing that the opposite is actually true. If health care reform is completed by mid-January, Weisberg argues, the president will deliver a State of the Union address in a couple of months "having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency."

We are so submerged in the details of [the health care] debate -- whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox -- that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.

 

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Where Does Karl Rove Find the Nerve to Criticize Anyone About Deficits?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 27, 2009 at 4:29 PM.

When Karl Rove helped run the White House, he accepted certain beliefs as truths. He believed, for example, turning massive surpluses into massive deficits was entirely reasonable. He believed reckless tax cuts for the already rich were an example of responsible governing. He believed expanding the size of government, adding to entitlements, increasing the federal role in education, and putting it all on future generations' tab, was perfectly sensible. He believed fiscal responsibility was a punch-line.

And now that Karl Rove is outside the White House, he believes he's entitled to complain about deficits from his perch in the media establishment.

What seems to concern the president is not the problem runaway spending poses for taxpayers and the economy. Rather, what bothers him is the political problem it poses for Democrats.

Last year, Mr. Obama made fiscal restraint a constant theme of his presidential campaign. "Washington will have to tighten its belt and put off spending," he said back then, while pledging to "go through the federal budget, line by line, ending programs that we don't need." Voters found this fiscal conservatism reassuring.

However, since taking office Mr. Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a $33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion car company bailout. He also pushed a $821 billion cap-and-trade bill through the House and is now urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 trillion health-care bill.

Rove wants to see an "honest appraisal" of where we are. Good idea. The stimulus was necessary because Rove's old boss left the president an economy on the verge of wholesale collapse. S-CHIP expansion was necessary because Rove's old boss rejected a bipartisan measure to help low-income children go to the doctor. Rescuing the auto industry was necessary because it was a continuation of Rove's old boss' policy and the nation couldn't afford to cut off American manufacturing at the knees at the height of the recession. Cap and trade, Rove neglected to mention, wouldn't add to the deficit, and is necessary because Rove's old boss ignored the climate crisis for eight years. The health care reform bill would cut the deficit significantly, and is necessary because Rove's old boss fiddled while the dysfunctional health care system got worse.

That's an "honest appraisal."

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New Info Shows the Stimulus Is Working, Time for Conservatives to Thank Obama
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 25, 2009 at 3:58 PM.

The New York Times had a terrific report the other day, explaining that the stimulus package is "working," polls and Republican talking points notwithstanding.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and an occasional adviser to lawmakers from both parties, said, "[T]he stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do -- it is contributing to ending the recession." Zandi added that without the recovery bill, the "G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."

What I didn't realize is that the piece included some very helpful charts, featuring projections of key economic indicators from three companies that specialize in macroeconomic forecasting. (via Matt Yglesias). You'll notice, of course, the black line and the gray line -- the black representing progress with the recovery plan, the gray representing what would have happened without it.

There are several angles to keep in mind here. First, opponents of the stimulus would have us believe the recovery plan has failed. Those are, oddly enough, the same people who got us into this economic mess in the first place. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Second, as Brad DeLong explained, the people providing the data for the NYT charts are economists "who sell their forecasts to paying clients." In other words, these aren't political players who have an incentive to skew the data -- to stay in business, they have to get these trends right. And when it comes to the stimulus, they're unanimous in their beliefs that the Recovery Act helped the economy considerably, and will continue to do so next year.

Third, my only complaint about the charts is that there isn't a third line -- one for the economy with the stimulus, one for the economy with no intervention, and one with what we would have seen if we'd taken the Republicans' advice. It was, after all, 95% of congressional Republicans who, at the height of the crisis, voted for a truly insane five-year spending freeze.

How they feel justified complaining now, rather than thanking president for preventing an economic catastrophe, is a point of ongoing concern.

There's no mystery here. The debate is over. The economy is obviously still struggling, but the stimulus did what it was supposed to do, and has made a real, positive difference.

Conservatives were wrong about Reagan's tax increases. They were wrong about Clinton's tax increases. They were wrong about Bush's tax cuts. And they're wrong again now.

That Republicans still manage to talk about economic policy at all demonstrates a remarkable amount of chutzpah.

Will Joe Lieberman Be the Only Dem to Sabotage Health Reform?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT JOE.... Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), refusing to allow a vote on any health care bill that subjects private insurers to any competition at all, told the WSJ yesterday, "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? "The answer is no," he says in an interview from his Senate office. "I feel very strongly about this." How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won't be used unless private insurance plans aren't spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? "Correct," he says.

This isn't exactly new ground, but I think this was Lieberman's most explicit declaration in opposition to public-option "triggers." The bottom line is straightforward enough: if even one consumer is given a choice between a private plan and a public plan, Joe Lieberman will work with Republicans to kill health care reform, no matter the consequences for the millions who are counting on this bill to pass.

There's no reason to believe Lieberman is playing some kind of leverage game; all evidence suggests he's entirely sincere. The senator is so offended by the notion of public-private competition, he'll betray anyone and everyone to prevent it -- even if Lieberman doesn't seem to understand the basics of the policy he's so vehemently against.

With that in mind, should the "trigger" compromise become the focus of negotiations with the center-right, it suggests the road to 60 votes will go through Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) office, not Joe Lieberman's. Indeed, if Lieberman isn't willing to listen to reason, evidence, or pleas for compromise, it may very well be time to shift the nature of the talks -- I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Senate Dems simply stopped engaging Lieberman, and went back to figuring out how to make Snowe happy again. When the votes are cast, 60 is 60; whether the final vote comes from Snowe or Lieberman doesn't matter. (Maybe if Lieberman's phone stopped ringing, and he no longer felt important, he'd be more willing to engage in good-faith talks.)

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Obama Will Announce the Specifics of a Troop Increase in Afghanistan by Next Week
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2009 at 7:14 AM.

AFGHAN ANNOUNCEMENT A WEEK FROM TODAY.... After a lengthy review process, President Obama reportedly has all the information he needs to craft a new U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. We'll hear all about it in a televised address to the nation a week from tonight.

For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council.... The president's military and national security advisers came back to the president with answers he had requested during previous meetings, most of which focusing on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?

The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of whom would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy. [...]

While the president is expected by several of his advisers to announce sending more than 20,000 new troops - perhaps closer to the 40,000, as recommended by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal - the White House is working to make the announcement more than simply a number of troops. It will include an outline of an exit strategy, officials said.

That last part is obviously key. The decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan will not be popular with many of the president's own supporters, many of whom believe the longest war in American history should come to an end. But if the White House has not only decided on the size of an escalation, but also a larger, revamped strategy that features a light at the end of the tunnel, the administration's new policy may address at least one underlying concern.

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Lieberman's Latest B.S. Excuse for Opposing Health Reform
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 23, 2009 at 5:31 AM.

That Joe Lieberman would rather kill health care reform than let some consumer choose between competing public and private plans isn't exactly new. I continue to find it fascinating, though, to see his evolving explanations.

In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.

In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.

In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.

In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.

In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."

Well, it's November. And guess what? We're onto the sixth rationale in six months. I actually like the new one.

"This is a radical departure from the way we've responded to the market in America in the past," Lieberman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press." "We rely first on competition in our market economy. When the competition fails then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate.... We have never before said, in a given business, we don't trust the companies in it, so we're going to have the government go into that business.."

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Americans Lack Economic Literacy; Some Hold "Insane" Views on Stimulus Spending
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 20, 2009 at 3:37 PM.

OK, so most Americans have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to the deficit. How are they when it comes to understanding stimulus efforts? Arguably, on this, they're even worse.

Rasmussen has a new poll showing a 51% majority believes canceling the economic recovery efforts would "create more jobs." Derek Thompson, flabbergasted, characterized these beliefs as "insane."

It's one thing to say that canceling the rest of the stimulus money would help our deficit. That's arguable, even if I think it's dead wrong, since the best way to help our deficit is to put people back to work when demand is nonexistent so that they (1) receive taxable income and (2) spend that taxable income on products to help other people's taxable income. [...]

The idea that canceling the stimulus would create more jobs implies that passing the stimulus has actually killed more jobs than it's created, which is bonkers. Let's say you don't want to consider infrastructure spending or green technology spending or a single job that might have been created in the private sector. If nothing else, the tens of billions we've sent to state budgets have, without question, saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, like teachers, that are supported by state taxes. It's just a very basic fact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html

So this is a crazy statistic, but I think it's important to ask why Americans think the stimulus is actually hurting job-creation.

It's a good question, and your guess is as good as mine. Chances are, it's not just one thing. Part of the confusion is likely the result of an electorate that doesn't quite understand the basics, and is therefore easily misled by the same people who got us in this mess. Part of it comes from a media that hasn't made much of an effort to explain the basics. And part of the problem has to be politicians -- one party believes Hoover was right about the Great Depression, and the other party is afraid to talk about how government spending and intervention prevented a wholesale economic collapse.

Regardless of the cause, the consequences of widespread confusion and ignorance can be, and may turn out to be, devastating. If most Americans believe government spending undermines job creation, and are convinced that short-term deficit reduction is more important than economic growth, they're more likely to vote for arsonists to put out the fire.

The surest way to make things even worse is to reward those who created the problem in the first place.

Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Love the Senate Health Care Bill
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 19, 2009 at 3:33 PM.

BENDING THE PROVERBIAL CURVE.... For some conservatives, including some center-right Democrats, the very point of tackling health care reform is to get health care costs under control. Ezra Klein has a great item today, explaining how the Senate reform bill does just that.

If this piece of the bill was passed on its own, it would be the most important cost control bill ever considered by the United States Congress. But you could never have passed it on its own. You needed the coverage to make the grand bargain work. Republicans like to call this bill a trillion-dollar experiment to expand the health-care system, and in some ways, it is. But it's also a multitrillion-dollar experiment to cut costs in the health-care system, and it deserves credit for that, and support from fiscal conservatives. It's easy to talk about cutting costs, but this is the chance for people to actually do it.

The "grand bargain" is an important concept that often goes overlooked in the debate. For the left, which has been clamoring for health care reform for several generations now, the point of fixing the system is the moral outrage of allowing tens of millions of Americans to go without coverage. The uninsured are one serious illness away from bankruptcy, or one layoff away from family peril, and progressives have long demanded a remedy.

For the right, the principal reason to even entertain the possibility of reform is fiscal -- conservatives are worried about spiraling costs and massive deficits.

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Rep. Virginia Foxx Credits GOP for Civil Rights Legislation
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 19, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

FOXX'S NOTION OF 'REVISIONIST HISTORY'.... On the House floor today, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a right-wing Republican from North Carolina, boasted of her party's alleged progressive history on civil rights.

"Just as we were the people who passed the civil rights bills back in the '60s without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle," said Fox. "They love to engage in revisionist history."

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), stunned, tried to set Foxx straight, pointing to the role of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations of the 1960s. "John Lewis, a member of this House, was beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge to get that civil rights legislation passed," Cardoza reminded Foxx. "Tell John Lewis that he wasn't part of getting that legislation passed."

Matt Corley added, "To support the claim that Republicans were actually the architects of civil rights, conservatives often point out that a 'higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the civil-rights bill.' But this ignores the 'distinct split between Northern and Southern politicians' on the issue."

This comes up from time to time, and since some confused people like Virginia Foxx have trouble remembering the details, it's worth the occasional refresher.

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies -- southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.

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GOP Lawmakers Accuse Holder of Being a Terrorist Sympathizer
Posted by Steve Benen on November 19, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

ENOUGH TO MAKE AN ATTORNEY GENERAL LAUGH.... Attorney General Eric Holder talked to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, primarily about the decision to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators in federal court. It didn't go especially well -- Republicans on the panel didn't seem persuaded -- but Dahlia Lithwick highlighted the most troubling aspect of the Q&A.

Specifically, some GOP senators are concerned that some Justice Department officials, including the attorney general himself, may actually be terrorist sympathizers.

[Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa] demanded that Holder explain the presence in the solicitor general's office of Neal Katyal, who represented Osama Bin Laden's driver at the Supreme Court. Grassley used a smear from the New York Post (penned by the writer who ridiculously claimed Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh believed "Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts") to demand that Holder account for Jennifer Daskal as counsel in its National Security Division, who allegedly wants terrorists to have more time to write poetry. Grassley demanded that Holder produce a list of DoJ appointees who have ever acted as lawyers for terror detainees.

 

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Yet More Mind-Bending Racism From the Right-Wing Media
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 18, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

THE ENDURING KNOW-NOTHING STRAIN.... Washington Times editor Wesley Pruden trashed President Obama in his column today, which wouldn't ordinarily be especially interesting. The right-wing writer, however, touched on a specific kind of attack that illustrates a larger trend.

In this case, Pruden is all worked up because the president bowed before the Japanese Emperor. Pruden believes Obama doesn't understand "American history" because "the essence of America is that all men stand equal and are entitled to look even a king, maybe particularly a king, straight in the eye."

That's nice rhetoric, which would be more compelling were it not for the various photos of Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and H.W. Bush bowing before foreign leaders during their respective tenures. I've looked for related columns of Pruden trashing these Republican presidents for forgetting "the essence of America," but can't seem to find any.

But the key to the column is the wrap-up:

...Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to "hope" for "change." It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

This is obviously some pretty offensive nonsense from a shameless hack, but it also speaks to a Know-Nothing strain that lingers in American politics.

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How Far Right Must GOPers Lean to Please a Crazy Base?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 17, 2009 at 7:30 AM.

AN ODD WAY TO SHOW 'LEADERSHIP'.... It's almost tragic to see what a guy has to do to seek the Republican presidential nomination these days.

In the era of tea-party conservatives, [Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R)] is calculatedly veering to the right. Speaking to the Economist in St. Paul, he recently explained that the Earth might be warming but that it is unclear "to what extent that is the result of natural causes."

Pawlenty obviously knows better. We know he knows better because he has a lengthy, public record on environmental issues that bears no resemblance to his new positions. Lee Fang has a terrific timeline, which makes clear that "over the course of the last three years, Pawlenty has gone from an outspoken proponent of clean energy to a Glenn Beck pandering climate change denier." In late 2006, Pawlenty not only sought to reduce carbon emissions, he even promoted a regional cap-and-trade program. In late 2007, he declared climate change "one of the most important of our time."

That was then. Now Pawlenty opposes his own cap-and-trade plan and claims to question the basics of global warming.

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The Future of the Stupak Amendment
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 16, 2009 at 4:01 AM.

Earlier in the week, President Obama signaled that the Stupak amendment will have to be changed. He told ABC News' Jake Tapper that "there there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo."

The point being, the Stupak measure would change the status quo.

Sunday, David Axelrod expressed a very similar sentiment.

Axelrod also addressed the House health care bill's Stupak amendment, which would prevent federal subsidies for abortions. Axelrod said that the president doesn't believe health care reform "should change the status quo" and that "this shouldn't be a debate about abortion" -- while also acknowledging that "the bill Congress passed does change the status quo."

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Hypocrisy Watch: RNC Insurance Plan Has Covered Abortions for 18 Years
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 13, 2009 at 5:17 PM.

RNC SUBSIDIZES ABORTIONS FOR 18 YEARS -- AND COUNTING.... The debate over financing of abortions -- the basis for the offensive Stupak amendment -- is all about money being fungible. Amy Sullivan explained the problem nicely recently: "The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars."

But applying this argument can prove problematic. Focus on the Family, for example, one of the nation's largest religious right organizations and a fierce opponent of abortion rights, has health insurance for its employees through a company that covers "abortion services." The far-right outfit, by its own standards, indirectly subsidizes abortions.

Apparently, the Republican National Committee has the same problem. Politico reported yesterday afternoon that the RNC -- whose platform calls abortion "a fundamental assault on innocent human life" -- gets insurance through Cigna with a plan that covers elective abortion.

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Rick Perry 'Hell Bent' on Pleasing Right-Wing Base
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 12, 2009 at 8:48 AM.

PERRY 'HELL BENT' ON PLEASING RIGHT-WING BASE.... It's funny to think about now, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) used to be a Democrat. In 1988, he even endorsed Al Gore's presidential candidacy. It was just two decades ago.

Now, however, Perry isn't just a right-wing Republican, he's proving to the state party's base just how radical he can be. In the midst of a gubernatorial primary, Perry feels the need to say truly insane things, which this year has included talk of secession and crypto-confederate notions of "nullification" of federal laws.

Yesterday, the governor went even further, going full-on crazy to impress the Tea Party crowd.

Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of "punishing" Texas and being "hell-bent" on turning the United States into a socialist country. [...]

Perry ... accused the Obama administration of intentionally dumping illegal immigrants from other western states in Texas, recalling a conversation he had with local officials notifying him that illegal aliens that were caught in Nogales, Arizona were being dropped off by federal authorities in Presidio, Texas.

"Friday a week ago, I got not a phone call from Washington, not a letter from Washington and as a matter of fact, I don't think any member of our congressional delegation was even notified. The first time we were contacted was by the superintendent of the school and the county judge of Presidio County," Perry said.

"They said, 'do you all know what's fixin' to happen?' I said, 'well, no. What's going on?' They said 'the government has just called us and said for us to get ready for an influx of illegal aliens who were captured illegally crossing the border.'"

"It's called the alien transfer-and-exit program," Perry told the crowd, "trucking them from Nogales, past El Paso down to our western border in Presidio."

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