Some Things Bear Repeating

It's been said before, and plenty of times, that Bush's policies are contributing far more to our so-called "debt crisis" than Obama's policies do. The New York Times lays it out for us one more time.

A couple of things stand out for me in this presentation. The first is, no matter how much rightwingers harp on "Obama's failed stimulus," you'll notice that Bush put a stimulus package together, too, in response to the global financial meltdown. That was all tax cuts, and added on top of the original tax cut bill. And that failed pretty spectacularly, too, since the economy continued to melt down, oh, until Obama's stimulus bill passed.

One could argue, I suppose, that Bush's stimulus, and Obama's, added together, were finally enough to keep the entire global economy from going over the cliff into Great Depression II. But to make such an argument, you'd have to embrace the now- quaint notion that Keynesian counter-cyclical measures are a good idea. How I miss living on that planet.

The second thing that occurs to me is that, unlike Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, Obama didn't even vote for most of the Bush policies that dug us into deeper debt. It's true that he did help whip the TARP deal, but that still leaves the GOP holding most of the shovels at the bottom of a pretty deep pit.

Also, note that this chart shows projections for two full terms in office for President Obama, based on policies implemented to date. You'll note that Obama has already cut spending, something Bush didn't do during his entire eight years. Obviously at this point we can expect further spending cuts, even if Obama never gets a second term.

Finally, this chart concerns only the policies each president put in place. It doesn't even address the main reason we have record deficits right now: the ongoing jobs recession, which deprives government of revenue – at all levels – and impels higher payments to individuals and institutions – again, at all levels.

So, just to review: on whose watch did the global economy implode?

A Better Speech

I think what I was hoping he would say was: I'm tired of dicking around with these irresponsible fools. They've already passed budgets mandating this level of spending, and if they won't do the right thing and cover their own debt obligations, I will. Pursuant to the 14th amendment, I'm directing the Treasury Secretary to ignore the debt limit and follow the spending plans Congress has already approved. If they don't like it they can sue me or impeach me, but I'm not letting them crash the global economy - AGAIN.

But that would have been quite a surprise.

Barney Frank is a National Treasure

How diminished our national discourse would be without him. He's a one-man quote factory. This is my favorite since the "dining room table" quip. Via Crooks and Liars:

I've already voted to raise the debt limit. I voted to raise it earlier this year straight forward. And by the way, it's not my debt limit. I voted against the war in Iraq and I voted against the Bush tax cuts. On my debt limit, I got a couple trillion left to go. I was very generous. I voted to raise the other people's debt.

What Digby Sez

Everything Digby writes is a JGRTWT, but she's at the top of her game here. She's built up a righteous head of steam today (which isn't hard to do) on Obama's negotiating strategies:

It's not that people don't understand that he has to compromise. It's that he puts the defining issues of the Democratic Party on the table in exchange for gimmicks and promises from the other side. It would be as if George W. Bush had offered to tax evangelical churches and ban private ownership of handguns in exchange for Democrats agreeing to raise the cap on Social Security. When you do something like that, you should expect some blowback.  

She ties this in to Krugman's recent post on what Obama was willing to be seen as willing to give away. Even if he knew that Republicans were going to turn him down no matter what, laying out these kinds of cards can't help but make it harder for the president's party to win back the House and hold the Senate next year.

However much slack one is willing to cut Barack Obama, it's getting hard to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt. BooMan runs down what may have been going through John Boehner's mind:

I don't know what Boehner may have thought was possible or what he truly wanted. Alcoholics don't think straight and are hard to decipher. But I don't think he wanted to be in the history books as making a deal with the Kenyan, Muslim, socialist president. He certainly wanted to leave the impression with his caucus that he was only humoring the president.

Referring back to my earlier post, "No, Our Side Sucks More," it's a huge mistake to assume that Republicans are willing to negotiate in good faith anymore. They've made it clear that damaging the president is their top priority – even above the national interest. Playing chicken with them, or even calling their bluff, has such enormous consequences for non-rich Americans that it's excruciating to watch.

I'd love to wrong about this, but I just want it to be over. Please let it end soon.

Wasted, Man

When my daddy was a little boy, his mama used to tell him to finish up his meals, "because there are people starving in China." His response was, "Can we just send it to them, then?"

Now that I'm a parent myself, I see a lot of unfinished meals at the family table. Which is why I got a twinge of First World guilt when I saw this UN report that says roughly one-third of the global food supply is wasted. And guess where most of that waste comes from?

Mister Cabbage Tool

Over at FDL this morning, Phoenix Woman bats around the minions of Pete Peterson like a kittypet with a fledgling sparrow. Peterson is like the Koch Brothers of fiscal policy, showering grant money and cocktail-weenie buffets on those who opine that the greatest threat facing our nation is the potential shortfall in Social Security funding in 2037. As a result, this is been one of the great bugaboos of serious people and hack pundits for a couple of decades now, despite scant evidence and, ahem, more pressing matters.

Now, there may be more odious pundits in America than Charles Krauthammer, but the list is a short one (Hm...not as short as I thought). Anyway, Mr. Cabbage Tool has coughed up not one, but two hairballs of late, contributing to the national discourse on this matter. Others have had their fun with him, but it galls me to see such nonsense   in my local legacy media before breakfast.

1995: GATT & the Ecology of Commerce

"Free" trade agreements continue to be controversial, and provoke splits in both parties' coalitions. Meanwhile, the long run is getting shorter every day, and sustainability continues to be our only option.

Just as the December issue went to press, the lame-duck 103rd Congress ratified the odious GATT treaty. Sold under the comforting rubric of "free trade," the GATT treaty is anything but. Like NAFTA before it, the agreement is more like an interlocking set of protectionist measures, mostly forced on the poorer nations by the richer ones on a take-it or-leave it basis.
With profound contempt for the democratic process, the GATT agreement was negotiated behind closed doors by the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, then rammed through Congress on a "fast-track" basis, with a minimum of debate and no amendments allowed.

The real tragedy of GATT and NAFTA is that with input from labor and environmental groups and indigenous populations, they could have been genuine free trade agreements, and formed a basis for global cooperation and economic justice. The agreements between the richer and poorer nations in the European Community provide a useful model for what might have been. Opponents of our bogus free trade pacts are not opposed to the principle of free trade, just to the shameless corporate giveaways we've seen in the last year.

Combined with the serious attitude problem to be found in the 104th Congress (about to take power as this issue goes to press), the GATT agreement presents major impediments to any attempt to save the planet. Both developments promise a further concentration of economic power, even further removed from any sort of popular control.