Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) has a daring budget proposal

This was brought up at the presidential Q&A with House Republicans. Ezra explains here. I like the solutions and am in favor of it.

But you have to figure Republicans will be killed at the polls if they seriously coalesced around cutting Medicare this way. Though a serious proposal on the merits (as Obama acknowledged in the Q&A), being politically nonviable it will only serve to keep tea partiers happy and assist Republicans in painting Democrats as not serious about Medicare's insolvency.

Really it's the public that's not serious. Medicare future deficits are unsustainable, but we still aren't willing to tolerate service cuts or tax increases to close the gap.

How Newt Gingrich broke congress

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explains.

Sentences to ponder

The Hill:

The College Football Playoff Act of 2009 would ban promoting, marketing or advertising a "national championship game" unless the game is part of a single-elimination playoff tournament like the National Football League playoffs. The bill threatens to hold college football's governing body in violation of Federal Trade Commission truth-in-advertising provisions.

The Gatekeeper

Peter Suderman profiles the CBO:

Created as an afterthought and initially intended as a low-profile congressional calculation service, the CBO has quietly risen to a place of unique prominence and power in Washington policy debates. Widely cited and almost universally respected, it is treated as judge and referee, resolving disputes about what policies will cost and how they will work.

But the agency’s authority is belied by the highly speculative nature of its work, which requires an endless succession of unverifiable assumptions. These assumptions are frequently treated as definitive, as if on faith. In practice, this means the CBO is not merely an impartial legislative scorekeeper but a keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths, a clan of spreadsheet-wielding priests whose declarations become Washington’s holy writ.
(cont.)

Republicans pull ahead for 2010?

Seems some people are being reminded of why they don't like Democrats. In particular, disaffected Republicans who identify as Independents:



A six point swing in one month is rather surprising. But it's just one poll, so the usual caveats apply. Hopefully it'll prod more into the field to confirm. I'll be watching pollster.com's average with the sensitivity high and Rasmussen eliminated.

Link blag

Conor Friedersdorf knows how to fix the Right. Now if only they were listening...

Larison has smart things to say about the Crist-Rubio Florida Senate Primary.

Pelosi was smart to pass cap and trade early.

The physics of free-throw shooting.

Researchers have found a way to grow new organs by grabbing cells, spraying them onto a protein frame, dunking them in "growth-stimulating compounds," and then sticking them in an oven. Naturally, they're using this technique to grow new penises.

Nicole LaPorte was a Twilight virgin.

A headline to appreciate: "Madonna to meet Jesus's parents".

New poll shows 100% of grandsons are talented...

ATLANTA—A Zogby poll of 1,542 American grandparents published Monday found that grandsons were described as "very" to "extremely" talented by 1,542 of the respondents. "Participants in the poll were emphatic in their descriptions of the talents of grandsons in fields as diverse as advertising and sales, choral performance, baseball, talking, crawling, making their beds, video games, and instructing their elders on proper cell-phone use," pollster Tom Waterton said. "In addition, an overwhelming percentage of grandchildren were described as outgoing, sharp, and looking just like Uncle Andy, you remember Uncle Andy, he was always up to something, too bad he passed so young, he would have loved the grandchild in question." Sources at Zogby admitted that the survey was incomplete, as several hundred pollsters are still unable to get their assigned grandparents off the phone.

Government motors update

Ugh.

GOP in the House?

Nate Silver peers into his crystal ball and guesstimates 20-25% odds of a GOP takeover next year.

Presidential PowerPoint

The sales pitch:

21 most libertarian representatives

Representative
State
District.Number
Party
Deviation
Paul, Ron
Texas
14
R
-33.35
Scalise, Steve
La.
1
R
-28.4
Gonzalez,Charles
Texas
20
D
-24.12
Hinojosa, Ruben
Texas
15
D
-22.44
Dreier, David
Calif.
26
R
-20.92
Brady, Kevin
Texas
8
R
-20.4
Braley, Bruce
Iowa
1
D
-20.12
Loebsack, Dave
Iowa
2
D
-20.12
Nunes, Devin
Calif.
21
R
-19.65
Jefferson,William
La.
2
D
-19.12
Berry, Marion
Ark.
1
D
-18.64
Boyd, Allen
Fla.
2
D
-18.64
Boyda, Nancy
Kan.
2
D
-18.64
Ross, Mike
Ark.
4
D
-18.64
DeGette, Diana
Colo.
1
D
-18.12
Tauscher, Ellen
Calif.
10
D
-17.17
Cantor, Eric
Va.
7
R
-16.8
Cole, Tom
Okla.
4
R
-16.3
Larsen, Rick
Wash.
2
D
-16.12
Conaway, Mike
Texas
11
R
-15.26
McCarthy, Kevin
Calif.
22
R
-15.22

(From Secular Right)

Illegal health reform

You mean Congress can't do whatever it wants?

Conor Clarke has a workaround.

Tinklenberg drops out of Minnesota 6

I'm with Jazz at TMV:

This should open up the runway a bit for Assistant State Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, who I let you know about before. Given the current trajectory of this Congress, particularly in matters of minding the public purse, I’m leaning heavily toward getting as many Republicans elected next year as possible. I will, however, make an exception in the case of Minnesota 6 and send a donation to whoever winds up running against [Michele Bachmann (R-Mars)]. That’s a special kind of crazy that we don’t need in the United States Congress, no matter which way she votes on any given bill.

Sigh

NPR:

The nation is close to evenly split in its assessment of the president's policies to date, and there is great intensity on both sides of the debate with dwindling numbers in the middle.

Those are the chief findings of the latest NPR poll of registered voters conducted nationwide Wednesday through Sunday by a bipartisan team. The pollsters found 53 percent approving of the president's handling of his job, while 42 percent disapproved — the narrowest gap of the Obama presidency to date. Most of the approving group said they approved strongly, and an even greater majority of the disapproving group said they disapproved strongly.

Poll respondents liked a Democratic statement on solving health care problems better than a Republican statement (51 percent to 42 percent). However, when asked about the plan now moving through Congress, a plurality of 47 percent was opposed and 42 percent said they were in favor, based on what they had heard about the plan so far.

I hope Obama's declining popularity is due to a recognition of bad policy choices in collusion with the Democratic congress, rather than Americans taking the deranged right seriously...

A longer view on the deficit and entitlements

Obama's phone interview yesterday afternoon with Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Post, was somewhat encouraging for deficit hawks.  The whole is worth reading for details on health reform, but here's the second half on the bigger picture:

Hiatt: CBO and other economists say that, as you say, you can't solve the fiscal problem if you don't solve the health problem. But they also say that solving the health cost problem is not sufficient, that a big part of the issue is demographics and aging. And so -- and as you know, the 10-year budget shows the government raising 18 or 19 percent of [gross domestic product] in 2019, and spending 24 or 25 percent --

Obama: We have a structural gap that has to be closed.

Hiatt: So can I ask you how you think about the timing and politics of closing that structural gap?

Obama: What I think has to happen is if we can show that we have a disciplined health care reform package that is serious about cost savings and is deficit-neutral, you combine that with the pay-go rules that we have been promoting and I believe that we can get through Congress, and you are imposing some discipline on the appropriations process -- and I thought that the F-22 victory yesterday was a good example of us starting to change habits in Washington -- then I think we're in a position to be able to, either at the end of this year or early next year, start laying out a broader picture about how we are going to handle entitlements in a serious way.

It may start with Social Security because that's, frankly, the easier one. And I think that it's possible to also look at tax reform and think about are there ways that we can maybe even lower marginal rates but eliminate all the loopholes and have that a net revenue generator. I think there are going to be a bunch of things that we can take a look at, but I think health care reform combined with pay-go, combined with how we deal with appropriations bills over the next six months will help lay the foundation for us to be able to make some of these broader structural changes.

The challenge I've got, Fred, is that obviously -- our biggest problem right now in terms of short-term deficit is the recession. And nobody -- no economist I've talked to thinks that it would be wise for us to start early, start now, in reducing government outlays, when states are already cutting back drastically, and you'd have a hugely destimulative effect on the economy. But we have to begin to prepare on the midterm and the long term. And that's why I think health care reform is so important.

Hiatt: So but you'd start that in an election year and does that --

Obama: Well, probably what you end up having to do in terms of structural reforms realistically is you probably have to set up some sort of commission or mechanism that reports back with the prospect of maybe locking in a pledge for action, post election. I just think that's probably the most realistic thing that we can do.

And as I said before, the truth is you wouldn't want anything that would take effect until the economic recovery is much -- on much firmer footing anyway.

Hiatt: And you'd be willing to look at a commission -- I mean, beyond Social Security that sort of puts everything on the table?

Obama: Yes, I think everything is going to have to be on table. But here's my concern. If we are not able to get health care reform -- and, Fred, I just want to be frank with you at this point that this is why I think that if you're a deficit hawk like you, you should actually be -- you should be hard on sort of the product, but you should be encouraging on the process, because the fact of the matter is, is that if health care reform fails, there is no way that Congress is going to take up a serious effort to control health care inflation -- there's no way that we're going to pass the kinds of changes we've already talked about in Medicare, for example, in the absence of a more comprehensive reform package. And so what we're going to have is a situation in which it's just business as usual for, I think, the next four years at minimum, and maybe the next eight -- in which case, the problem is just going to keep on getting worse and worse.

So I think it is important to be jaundiced about the possibility that health care reform in the absence of these game-changers makes things worse, and I think that's entirely fair to talk about. But I think that -- Steve Pearlstein was exactly right in his article today, which is, here's what we know: If we do nothing, this thing is a nightmare, and we will not be able to, I think, just apply pain to the electorate either through mechanisms like simply cutting Medicare benefits at a time when seniors are already feeling very stressed, when we're not also providing the people some additional security.

Hiatt: I mean, that is very persuasive, of course. I guess to be jaundiced if I could a little bit, one could look at your presidency and say you have taken on early a lot of really hard things, as you say, not just health care but cap-and-trade and education and charters and Pell grants, and put the entitlement reform or fiscal whatever we're going to call it in the second tier. And so why shouldn't the deficit hawks be nervous that that says something of that -- that you're committed to it, but when it comes to your priorities, you're committed to it in the second tier?

Obama: Well -- and here would be my argument. The reason that it hasn't been at the forefront of my agenda is because I walked in when we were about to slip into the Great Depression -- or the next Great Depression. And so I had to start off, coming out of the box, with a recovery package that, whatever arguments may be made by the critics at this point, there was no economist out there who thought we didn't need to do, and a portion of that was just stabilization funds for states and tax cuts that were uncontroversial.

Folks can argue about some of the investments that were made -- most of them were roads and bridges and things -- but there might be people who said, well, why are you doing, for example, some education reform or health IT and here? Fair enough. But the overwhelming bulk of it was a much needed infusion of government demand to make up for trillions of dollars of wealth that has been lost.

Now, every economist I speak to, left and right, would also agree that it doesn't make sense for us to begin the process of deficit reduction at a time when the economy is still limping along. So I don't think it reflects -- I don't think our actions --

Hiatt: Like you said before, you could do good things for down the road --

Obama: Absolutely. But I think if you will recall, we had our -- we had a fiscal responsibility summit very early. And I put down a marker that this is going to be important to us.

I've been in office six months. I think sometimes people forget the fact that I think at this point in Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton's presidency, their major initiative hadn't even gotten off the ground yet. I mean, in some ways we're our own worst enemy because we've gotten so many things done in these first six months, a lot of them dealing with extraordinary circumstances, that the sense is somehow that we have been putting off things that are also important to us. I just can't do everything at once.

And what I've said to Kent Conrad, what I've said to Judd Gregg, what I've said to others is, is that I am very -- I've said this to the Blue Dogs, I said it very early on -- we are serious about this. I was the one who pushed very hard to get the pay-go process moving so that we can start locking that in. We were very clear in terms of our budgeting, even though people were still concerned that we hadn't trimmed the budget as much as people would have liked. The fact is, is that we made some serious changes in how the budget is structured -- for example, making sure that our war expenses were in our budget -- to set the groundwork, to set the foundation, for us having a serious conversation about the budget.

So I think that the perception that we haven't been worried about this is partly subject to circumstances. You had -- we had to come out with a stimulus early. That was not what I would have preferred to do. I then had an omnibus because the previous administration and Congress had not been able to sort through their problems. And I will confess that there were aspects of that that I did not like, but I had to make a decision -- at a time when I wasn't clear whether or not the economy was going to get even worse and we potentially were going to have to take even more extraordinary action -- about the consequences of being embroiled in an enormous budget fight about last year's business.

We then had, by law, we had to introduce our budget, and then we had the supplemental, all at a time when government revenues are tanking.

And so I understand why a deficit hawk would be nervous. I'm nervous about this. And if you talk to my senior advisors, they'll tell you I'm on them every day about how are we going to make sure that we're positioning ourselves to take care of this long term.

But I just have to go back to the issue of health care reform. If I can't get this done, then I don't know how we're going to make the draconian choices that would then be required to close this gap in a serious way. I don't know how we can accomplish this if we've got 7, 8 percent health care inflation.

I mean, if you think about the politics of it for a moment, you would -- if you've got health care reform going up at that pace, then the only way to deal with this is to drastically cut services -- including things like Medicare that are just very hard to do politically in the absence of a broader comprehensive package or changes in delivery system -- and at the same time, increasing revenues, all in an environment in which the economy is struggling to rebound from a very serious body block.

And I just don't see Congress having the stomach to doing that unless we have a success under our belts with health care reform so that a year or two out, CBO starts looking and starts seeing some evidence that, you know what, health care reform -- health care inflation has, if not been tamed, it's gone down from 6 percent, say, to 3 percent. Now you start getting into the ballpark where you can say to people, look, if we do X, Y, Z -- if not a balanced budget then at least a deficit that is manageable comes into sight.

[..] Hiatt: Okay. Even for -- I mean, for all the things you're doing now, there are passionate constituents who want universal access, who want cap-and-trade. Hard to say -- there's many passionate people who talk about balancing the budget.

Obama: Right.

Hiatt: And so how do you deal with that in a political way?

Obama: Well, you know, I actually think that, sadly, decisions are going to be forced upon us.

Hiatt: By higher interest rates, or --

Obama: Yes, exactly. I mean, I think that if we don't show that we're serious in some fashion, then I think you're going to see a reluctance on the part of people who've been snapping up Treasurys to keep doing so.

Hiatt: And how soon do you think that could manifest itself?

Obama: Well, I don't want to speculate. That's like talking about the dollar or interest rates. But I do think that that is a prospect that we have to be wary of and concerned about. And that, in some sense, will -- certainly compels me, if I'm being responsible in my office, to push hard on this. Now, making the argument then to Congress and these constituencies and the public is going to be a challenge.

As I said, though, I think that it's a lot easier to have these conversations when unemployment is no longer at 10 percent, and people feel that we've made some progress on health care reform and they're feeling there's a little more economic security out there. It's much harder to make at a time when people are already feeling desperate.

Dancing on the grave of the F-22

DIA celebrates:

WE QUICKLY noted the defeat of funding for construction of new F-22 stealth fighter planes yesterday, but Fred Kaplan argues that the 58-40 vote was the start of a "new phase in defense politics". For decades, contractors had kept up funding for such boondoggles by making it politically impossible to kill them. "The Air Force shrewdly spread the plane's contracts to firms in 46 states," Mr Kaplan explains, "thus giving a solid majority of senators—and a lot of House members, too—a financial (and, therefore, electoral) stake in the program's survival." Hence we created the phrase "non-defence discretionary spending", in order to separate the cuttable parts of the budget from that most sacrosanct form of spending.

But with contractors seemingly giving up the fight on the F-22, senators have done the politically impossible and killed a wasteful defence programme. They have overcome the contracting schemes and accepted the inevitable political heat (cue Zell Miller). Perhaps only a Republican defence secretary and a Democratic Congress could've made it happen. Perhaps Robert Gates, respected by Democrats and Republicans alike, was the key factor. In other words, perhaps this feat will not be repeated by future congresses. But let's be optimistic. If this is a new era for defence spending, it's a new era for government spending, period.

Not so empty!

Yesterday in a post titled "Empty promises", I noted the CBO's assessment that the latest Democratic health proposals do not bend the federal health-care cost curve downward, and that Obama had promised otherwise. I wondered where his veto threat was.

Well, voila!

In remarks today, President Obama warned Congress he wouldn't sign a health care reform bill into law unless it [bends the] health care cost curve downward

Good news. Not so good if it means counterbalancing the costs of expanded coverage by crowding out innovation with Medicare-like price controls, but at least good from a fiscal-only standpoint--and in that he's keeping the promise, of course.

More health-care charts

From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, what it's like now:

…and what it would look like under the House Democrats’ health care plan:

(via Cato)

Fisking the president, and a look back at 2008

Keith Hennessey takes a devastating axe to Obama's op-ed. Read it and weep.

I've become quite disappointed with the Democratic congress and Obama administration's handling of the economy. I'm convinced the situation would be measurably better if we had done a large payroll tax cut instead of the stimulus Christmas tree that has yet to kick in.

McCain and Palin know nothing of economics, which is part of why their campaign was incredibly pathetic. Yet were they in office, they'd be surrounded by advisors like Keith. This could potentially have outweighed their ignorance, if they listened well. But given how Democratic the congress is, much would turn on how they worked together. For all its flaws, the stimulus we have today is arguably better than nothing. Although its provisions have yet to kick in at a meaningful level, its psychological effect has been positive. Back in January, people needed to be reassured. Fear itself was a problem. People are less fearful now, and this is undoubtedly good. Unfortunately, it's impossible to know whether the interaction of McCain and a Democratic congress would have been better. I guesstimate 30-40% odds of being better.

The ideal political-economic situation would likely be Obama and a Republican congress. If I could swap this congress and administration out for Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Which brings me to evaluating my satisfaction with voting straight Democrat last election...

My vote for congress in '06 and '08 turned on my exasperation with Republicans' handling of non-economic issues. The blind and unrepentant support for an unjust war, lack of oversight on the Bush administration's crimes against humanity, expansion of executive power, disregard for the rule of law, their hostility to equal rights, and absurdities like the Terri Schiavo law were far too much to take. I regret the economic consequences of my vote, and am unlikely to vote Democrat in the future, but such Republican excesses gave me no choice for these past two cycles. It was the right call.

Obama vs. McCain on the economy feels close to a toss-up. As mentioned, the interaction of a well-advised McCain with a Democratic congress could have been better, but it also could have been worse. So I'm close to ambivalent on this. But Obama vs. McCain on everything other than the economy is a solid win for Obama. He hasn't moved to right the Bush administration's wrongs as swiftly as most of us hoped, but McCain was essentially running for Bush's third term and that's what nightmares are made of.

What did the CIA hide from Congress?

Ambers opens:

Because the executive branch retains a stranglehold on regulations about the disclosure of classified information, there are very few ways for member of Congress who learn about objectionable, classified programs to reveal their discomfort. They can write a classified letter. They can risk prosecution by revealing the information publicly. Or they can do what a gaggle of House Democrats did yesterday: band together, suggest that the CIA misled them about a specific program, and wait for journalists to uncover the details.

He then goes off on a speculation spree. So basically, stay tuned...

Bravo, Ron Paul

Here's the text of H Res. 560, "Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes."

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;

(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and

(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.

Ron Paul's response made memeorandum—his was the single vote against. Emphasis mine below...

Congressman Ron Paul
United States House of Representatives

Statement Opposing Resolution on Iran

June 19, 2009

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama’s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.

I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.