Shining a Light on the Senate

    Praise be !!!   In military terms, it is a flanking move.  With the President hardly mentioning ongoing extraordinary unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, and bankrupt entitlement programs while throwing down the gauntlet of his liberal agenda in his second inaugural address, someone in the House (Budget Chair Paul Ryan) has realized that the Democrats' weak spot is the Senate where for three years Harry Reid has managed to table any financial discussions which might put the president on the spot or cause his Democratic members to make hard choices.  

    The specific challenge: The House will delay the enforcement of the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling until May 19, allowing the Senate until April 15 to propose a blueprint for taxes and spending. The stick - no blueprint, no pay. (The House has passed such, legally required blueprints since Republicans re-took the House in 2010.) In the meantime, automatic sequestration cuts of $70 billion for discretionary programs and $50 billion for defense are scheduled to kick in on March 2, and the current Continuing Resolution Authority - Congress' annual approval to "keep on keepin' on" in the absence of a budget - expires on March 27.     

    The media may want to talk about guns, immigration, and the rest of Obama's second term agenda, but the Republicans are betting that the public will agree that you shouldn't have a long term increase in the debt ceiling without a long term plan to control spending. They'd also like to remind voters that they've already given Obama a $65 billion tax increase, but that's last month's news.  

     Whether the Democrats and the media like it or not, the people will see something other than John Boehner caving in in this financial confrontation. Prominently on the stage will be:

        -  Harry Reid in his first prime time appearance since the Obamacare sausage making. Perhaps we'll get a reprise of the Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase, and a litany of procedural misconduct.  With Congress' approval at 7%, it will be good to place Harry at center stage.

         -  And his supporting cast:  Barack Obama's senior senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, the majority whip who may retire in 2014;  the third ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York; new Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington who talks of little but tax hikes on trhe rich and protection of entitlements. .

         -  The Republicans have their own baggage in Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who seems to have gone to sleep after his October 2010 comment that his primary objective was to see that Obama did not get reelected.  McConnell slides along in the clubby Senate, but a bad performance here will result in a Tea Party supported primary opponent in his 2014 reelection bid.

         -  The rest of the Republican cast offers quite a bit of upside. Party leader Jeff Sessions is forceful, if a bit sleepy, but the exposure of members Kelly Ayotte, Ron Johnson, Pat Twomey, Mike Crapo, Rob Portman, and John Thune offer a nice blend of experience and photogenic youth.

    In both parties, behavior will be affected by the looming 2014 elections in which the Republicans will defend 10 seats to the Democrats' 23. One objective of the Republicans in this budget fight, and throughout the term, will be forcing seven mostly mediocre Democratic Senators from states carried by Mitt Romney - Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia; Mark Begich of Alaska; Mary Landrieu of Louisiana; Mark Pryor of Arkansas; Tim Johnson of South Dakota; Kay Hagan of North Carolina; Max Baucus of Montana - to take a position for Obama or for their constituents.

    There is a reason that Harry Reid and Barack Obama have kept all matters financial from reaching the Senate floor. No more.   

                                            -----

    This week's video is a snippet from Hillary Clinton's "What does it matter?" testimony at the Senate hearing. For a discussion of the unanswered questions, see my December 20 post.   

bill bowen - 1/25/2013 

 

 

Comments

[DickG]

JUST ONE THING; Al, Jesse, Sheila, Charlie , the Caucus and now Colin, will tell you, "they have succeeded". That is the 'Culture'.
"We need it, you owe it, now pay it".

[Bill McCormick]

See this post:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16777032-teen-slain-after-performing-at-inaugural-happiest-day-of-her-life-and-then-shes-gone?lite=

At the risk of being misunderstood I will make these observations:

Here is an example of the social issues that seem to be overlooked in the move by our political system to address the problems of our country. Here is an inner city black girl on her way to moving to success and out of the circle of violence that she grew up in. Somehow her group from a prestigious Prep school in Chicago had made it to the inauguration and captured the attention of politicians. Meanwhile a few blocks from the President’s house she is shot and killed by an apparent random attacker firing into a crowd of kids seeking shelter from the rain. It was murder number 42 this month in Chicago. 500 in 2012. Her mom said her worst habit was buying too many books to read at Amazon. Do you think the shooter’s mom would say that too about her boy? The political leaders in Chicago immediately jumped on the event with we have gangs of kids who kill people with guns and we are pushing for tougher laws on gun ownership. As if that will solve the problem. The problem is gangs, lack of parental control, lack of education, too many teenage moms, lack of enforcement of laws against gangs, lack of intervention, etc. Guns are only a small part of it if any of it.

Here are a couple observations in this article: the girl came from a two parent family. She was encouraged to go to a well disciplined school—perhaps even private. She was recognized for the good activities she engaged it. Somehow she could go to Washington DC and all the other places she planned to go. Politicians will remember her as someone who would have been a Doctor or a Lawyer and have even said she was interested in politics. What if she was just an ordinary little girl who wanted to be a mom or work in a dress shop? I’m sure some of the other 500 killed were. Would we value them too? When you want to solve a problem you have to go to it’s roots. For 50 or more years the Democrats and many Republicans have tried to solve the inner city problems and the nations problems by trying to put social band aids on the wounds caused by problems to stop the bleeding in the form of welfare, unemployment, food stamps, money for education, public housing, gun control, free healthcare, homeless shelters, tax breaks for low income households,etc. All these band aids , while seeming humane and caring, enable generation after generation of kids to avoid the responsibility of breaking the cycle of poverty and crime. They allow the parents of children in many households to transfer the responsibility of raising and educating their children to society. And, they take away from the ability of society to fund the programs that develop economic activity to create jobs for these kids, they take away the focus on education reform in favor of increased funding, they put the focus on helping people instead of empowering people to address their problems of parenting. These two kids: one who died and one who killed her demonstrate the failings of the entitlement system. If this way was going to work then 50 years of Democratic dominance of the inner city political systems of Chicago, Detroit, etc would have produced model cities with thriving educational systems and talented employment pools long ago. When was the last time you saw the President at an inner city school talking with physics and math teachers about American children rather than importing them or going to the Vo tech schools and discussing the need for kids with IT skills and mechanical education—rather than college. We don’t need more money we need to transform the way we spend the money we have and the solutions to our problems. We need to get off the band aids and on to the reasons for the wounds. Social behavior comes from society teaching proper behavior and enforcing it through parents not cops and administrators. There are jobs for every kid who can sell and every kid with IT skills with mechanical training, and many thousands of others with non college level educations . But, they must be responsible, behave and understand English. They must learn as they work. They must appreciate employment and not exploit it. This entitlement system has led us to become a nation of excuses. Bill Clinton, yes a Democrat, learned that when he made it more difficult to stay on welfare and unemployment people went to work. The past 4 years Congress and this administration has made it easier and more lucrative to stay on welfare, food stamps and unemployment. And, unemployment has stayed at record levels throughout the 4 years. Where has THAT Bill Clinton gone?

[DickG]

GLAD TO AT LEAST HEAR IT EXPLAINED ONCE. We will never hear that explanation again. I had forgotten about the Administration suspending the legal requirement to employers on impending Jan. 'Lay-offs'. Jan. Unemployment phone calls will not be taking place in the area of these 'lay-offs', to be sure. The GDP for Q4 in combination might strike too much of a 'sobering note'.

[Bill McCormick]

RESPONSE: Dick, that response will be based on the -15% spending by the Federal government in Q4. However, what will be ignored is that the Fed spent their Q4 $$ in Q3 to make sure we looked good with that 3% increase in GDP in Q3 prior to the elections. You may also recall that the President also suspended the mandatory layoff annoucements to nearly 200,000 Federal Contractors personnel in Q3 as well in order to avoid losing Virginia. Games played with the economy/people in order to win elections and promote progressive policies are the norm with this Administration. The truest signal of what we were facing in this President was his statement to Joe the Plumber that he was leveling the playing field prior to the 2008 election.

US borrowed $300B in Q4 and we got a GDP of -.1%. What a great economic policy: do nothing, borrow money, print money, spend money.

[DickG]

THEY'VE GOT THAT 'GDP' EXPLANATION DOWN 'PAT'. "It's due to spending 'CUTS'. That's the 6:00PM 'Headline'. This Administration will always sacrifice the Country in order to cover it's own misdirected policy.
Former Secretary Powell demonstrated economic irrationalities when 'RACE AFFILLIATION' was allowed to enter political campaigns & discourse. It was very dissappointing to witness. Had been a great American ICON.

[Bill McCormick]

The GDP SURPRISE: This morning's Q4 GDP came out at MINUS .1%. There you have it your government in action destroying the Christmas quarter with their stupid can kicking led by a President who cannot sit down and negotiate. You get what you vote for. This is still the most arrogant and incapable economic leader in modern times. We elect leaders to solve our long term problems, develop fiscal planning and deal with emergencies. This administration refuses to take any responsiblity for fiscal responsiblility and totally misunderstands the role of leadership in developing confidence for the economic system: consumers and business managers. It was a surprise to Wall Street but not to this headhunter.

Besides the continual stand to raise taxes perhaps the most "stupid" stand of this administration is the total ignoring of natural gas as a clean fuel in increasing abundance. With natural gas at $16 in China and Europe and at $3 in America we burn it off at the well or cap it off. Not only can we power most of our trucks and our power plants for decades but we can reverse our export deficit by exporting it making Trillions for the economy and jobs for the people. California still refuses to uncap their huge oil reserves adding to the "stupidity" of the nation's leaders.

Meanwhile we sit waiting for Congress and the President to get to a solution on Debt, Benefits and spending. Manager confidence still wanes. CEO's visit the White House and beg for some sanity in approaching the sequestration and entitlements negotiations.

[DickG]

200 DEADLY ABRAMS TANKS & AN F16 PKG; into the hands of a Rogue State , sworn to destroy Israel. NOW CAN WE IMPEACH; OR DO WE AWAIT OUR OWN DEMISE ? Who do we call, Saul ?

[Bill McCormick]

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP:

EGYPTIAN Military says current violence could collapse the country.

CHICAGO murders reach ten year high. Tightest gun control laws in the nation.

DETROIT nears bankruptcy. Toyota passes GM as world's largest car dealer.

INDIA now comes into the money printing wars to counter JAPAN. Our FED policy is a shining example of 3rd world monetary policy: Don't earn the money--print it,spend it and put it on your balance sheet. We have triggered a world wide currency devaluation race.

[harrycat]

Some stick !!! When it is over they get the money back. Like they even need it. Most are multimillionaires.

[Bill McCormick]

STORMING THE SENATE? I think, Bill, that any idea that Republicans can recapture the Senate even with the large nymber of seats up for grabs in 2014 is very speculative. First, most incumbents win. Second, Obama is still riding high with his inauguration just completed. But, more important is the lack of solutions coming from Republican leadership. And, the lack of leadership candidates stepping forward. Where are the voices of Jeb Bush and Mario from Florida? Bobby Jindal seemed to come to life with a very good blast on how "stupid" Republicans continue to act.

In the meantime the Republicans give the President time to negotiate a fix to spending, sequestration and entitlements by passing some gimmick to allow the debt ceiling to go up. Provided the Senate pass a budget. Now we hear that Republicans have agreed to an immigration package. So, in the attempt to get out of the trap that the President and Reid set for them Republicans are backing up while promising to be tough later. The Democratic strategy is simple: Get as much increased revenue as possible. Make it the Republicans who are the bad guys when it comes to cutting spending for Defense, Medicare and entitlements. Continue to push the idea that we need tax reform to level the playing field against the rich and the big,bad Corporations. Get the Republicans who now realize that they cannot win elections without Mexican votes to agree to immigration reform delivering on the President's first term promise.

Without a Reagan type leader and some good ideas on solutions to propose on our national problems Republicans not only will not win the Senate they will possibly lose it. As much as I hate to say it the one hope Republicans have is that the economy will tank by 2016 and that is looking more and more likely. Unemployment will likely soon do an about face. Housing markets which are being touted as rebounding are showing more and more signs of weakness. The President will unleash his energy cops soon and that will drive up food and gas prices even further. The stock market is making idiotic moves based on nothing but overseas profits, money printing implied inflation, cost cutting by executives, dividend seeking retired people and continued misses on revenues.

Bill, I look forward to your recommendations for the party to rally. In the meantime we have Dems looking to get a foothold on the 2016 election with Biden quasi-declaring and Hillary on 60 Minutes with the President repairing her broken image.