Major media have sequestration all wrong

By Frank Moraes

I'm going to explain the Sequester to you and why most of the media have it all wrong. Back in 2011 when it was invented, the idea was to make something so horrible that neither side would accept it. Instead they would replace it with some bipartisan plan that the two sides disliked less and everyone would sing "Kumbaya." But even when pushed to come up with an "unthinkable" plan, the Republicans wouldn't go for any revenue increases. So instead, half the Sequester became military cuts.

Skip ahead a year and a half. Now everyone is standing around asking, "Will the Republicans really be willing to cut their beloved military?" My reaction to these people is: where in the hell have you been for the last 30 years?! We could be talking about the complete elimination of the military. Hell, we could be talking about the very destruction of the United States and Republicans would be against taxing rich people even a dollar more -- so long as those rich people would be able to keep their wealth after America was destroyed. The one overriding policy issue for Republicans is to keep the taxes of rich people down. (Note: when it came to the payroll take that is highly regressive, they had no problem letting it go back up.) The fact that major figures in the media think that isn't the case is a big part of the problem with politics in America.

Ezra Klein was surprised last week that Republicans didn't seem to understand what their own economists tell them: deductions are in fact government spending, just done in an unusual way. Think of the mortgage interest deduction. This allows homeowners to pay less in taxes. It would have exactly the same effect if instead the government had a program that gave homeowners money for owning a home. So what's the big deal with eliminating tax loopholes? They too are just government spending in another form. Ezra Klein thinks the Republicans just don't understand this.

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Is Obama selling us out -- again?

By Frank Moraes 

Ezra Klein reported yesterday afternoon and then again in the evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, that a debt ceiling deal is all but done: the president will take a top marginal tax rate of 37% and raise the retirement age to 67. It sounds outrageous, but Klein makes a compelling case, even though it is very much akin to tea-leaf reading. Basically, he's saying that Obama used to always say the top marginal tax rate must go back up to the Clinton levels and now he is signaling that he would take less. But this isn't new. I noticed right after the election that Obama had started saying that income over a quarter million must be taxed more -- specifically neglecting to mention how much more. So this isn't some sudden change.

Also note that Ezra Klein was completely wrong a couple of weeks ago when he said that fiscal cliff negotiations were all but done -- right before the Republicans made a week long show of how there was no progress on the negotiations. So I'm not at all certain that he is right. But as I said, he makes a compelling case. And if he is right, this is really bad.

Paul Krugman wrote exactly what I think:

First, raising the Medicare age is terrible policy. It would be terrible policy even if the Affordable Care Act were going to be there in full force for 65 and 66 year olds, because it would cost the public $2 for every dollar in federal funds saved. And in case you haven't noticed, Republican governors are still fighting the ACA tooth and nail; if they block the Medicaid expansion, as some will, lower-income seniors will just be pitched into the abyss.

Second, why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing? And no, vague promises about closing loopholes won't do it: a rate rise is the real deal, no questions, and should not be traded away for who knows what.

So this looks crazy to me; it looks like a deal that makes no sense either substantively or in terms of the actual bargaining strength of the parties. And if it does happen, the disillusionment on the Democratic side would be huge. All that effort to reelect Obama, and the first thing he does is give away two years of Medicare? How's that going to play in future attempts to get out the vote?

He's completely right. If Obama does this, it will indicate that he's been playing us all along. He talks pretty, but he is nothing close to liberal. I wish I weren't so cynical that I didn't believe it entirely possible.
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FinReg

By Creature

Ezra boils it down:

What matters here is whether they think the politics of fighting the bill are better than the politics of supporting it. That, and not policy disputes, is what's driving this process.

And, it seems, today the GOP has decided that the politics of fighting the bill are not on their side. Tomorrow, who knows. Dems, be prepared.

Finally

By Creature

"This thing's almost done, folks." -- Ezra Klein, reacting to the news that the HCR reconciliation bill is out of the Senate and on its way back to the House.

Quotes of the Day: Jon Chait and Ezra Klein on health-care reform (what else?)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Chait:

I don't mean to be too glum. Heath care reforms still stands a good chance of passage, and it hardly lacks for supporters. Still, the general thrust of elite sentiment has been, as I said, depressingly myopic. It's natural to focus on improving a piece of legislation whose details remain in flux. The problem comes when the desire to improve becomes the dole focus for evaluating it. Nearly any of the great political advances in American history, viewed from ground level, looked like a pastiche of grubby compromises and half measures. At some point the imperative is to take the broader view. If they ever do that-- whether health care reform succeeds or fails -- the critics from the delusional left, the hysterical right and the sullen center will feel ashamed.

Klein:

Reading Chris Bowers's excellent list of the progressive priorities fulfilled or partially fulfilled by the health-care bill's sidecar amendments is a reminder of how peculiar the framing of this debate has been. There's no doubt that progressives have suffered some real losses in the legislative process. The public option, for one. But along the way, a lot of progressives have lost sight of the fact that the very existence of this legislative process is a huge progressive victory. 

I don't mean to be anti-progressive, or anything of the kind, as my own views on health care -- I support the single-payer model -- are deeply progressive. But let's be real about this. The Senate bill + patches isn't ideal, but it's something, something historic, something that could lead to additional reforms down the road. It's what Democrats, and those on the left broadly, have been working for and waiting for for decades.

Klein is right, there have indeed been "some real losses" for progressives. And it's also true that Obama didn't do enough to promote a more progressive reform package, one with a robust public option. But what are we going to do about that now? Sabotage this incredible opportunity to get something done, something that is still, in an imperfect way, transformational?

Klein again:

[T]he fact of it is that this bill represents an enormous leftward shift for American social policy. It is not, in my view, a sufficient leftward shift, but it is unmatched by anything that has passed into law in recent decades. Progressives have lost some very hard battles but are on the cusp of winning an incredibly important war. For all its imperfections, health-care reform itself is deeply, deeply progressive. And if you don't believe me, just ask the conservatives who have made opposing it their top priority.

There you go.

It is a bitter thing, I know, to have to swallow a compromise bill written to appeal to "ConservaDem" support, and to accept demands made by the likes of Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. It doesn't seem like a win. But it is, and it's a big one, and it's time, long past time, to put aside our differences and to accept that this is it, like it or not, that it's much better than nothing, that it contains some genuinely progressive elements, that millions of people will benefit from it, and that it could very well be the start of a major shift in America towards greater justice and fairness not just with respect to health care but more broadly within society as a whole.

That, it seems to me, is worth fighting for -- and, to that end, worth uniting for.