The plans to keep Trump in the White House

(Sorry, catching up with backlog.)

This isn't easy because Trump didn't win enough states to win the Electoral College. So there have been other schemes. Lots of lawsuits trying to change the election results in states where the vote was close. Appeals to states where the GOP is the majority of the legislature to stop the usual procedures for appointing electors and substituting Trump-loyal electors instead. Trump calling the governor of Arizona as he's signing the certification (to threaten or plead????). Telling the governor of one state to call a special session of the legislature. States suing other states for how they ran their elections. Other states, Trump, and over 100 members of Congress signing on to the suit ( ...which was denied by the Supreme Court). Oh, did I forget to say disenfranchisement on a colossal scale? Some rallies, but not that many or anything really huge. 

Since it's after Dec. 14, the electors of the Electoral College have met and given Biden 306 votes versus 232 to Trump. The attempt to get Trump-loyal electors in place, or prevent Biden electors from being certified failed. Biden made it to 270. 

The last chance is an objection to the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. If a member of the House and Senate both object, each chamber has to listen to the objection and vote whether or not to accept the objection. Some loyal folks think this will work and Trump is pushing on senators to get in line. In preparation for some states being overturned one way or another, self-appointed electors for Trump have formed delegations. Is martial law being considered? There are numerous reports of it, and Lin Wood and Sidney Powell are pushing it. But there are also denials. Trump himself isn't keeping a cool head, but is turning on everyone. 

And there's yet another legal-route attempt, this time by Louie Gohmert and others. He opines that the VP (as president of the Senare) has the power to dismiss electors and choose other electors. Really? That sounds very dictatorial to me. I don't think that was the intention of any of the laws. Mike Pence didn't sign on to this thinking either, even though Gohmert gave him the opportunity. 

Image: nbcnewyork.com

Extras. Trump gave his 'most important speech ever' trying to tell how the election was stolen. Too bad the same claims didn't work in court. But for his followers, he's a beacon of hope and ....truth. That's sad. 

Most embarrassing document ever created by a White House staffer. The article also has some good stats on the election. And another superlative: the dumbest lawsuit filed about the election. 

Ron Johnson, senator from Wisconsin, had a somewhat heated but very ineffective hearing about election fraud. Claims of fraud just don't seem to have any traction after they've been rejected by a dozen judges. They need something fresh, new, powerful, and true, but none of that is happening. Too bad Johnson didn't have this GOP leader from PA testify. She said that her house would be bombed if she publicly refused to do Trump's bidding, so she's keeping it quiet rather than pointing out how unconstitutional his demands are. 

Trump is so busy trying to overturn the election that he didn't pay attention to the looming government shutdown if spending bills weren't passed. Same with any covid relief bill. The House and Senate finally managed to do it, and Trump belittles it. What was he doing all that time? Then he ended up signing the bill after days of acting like he wasn't going to. 

Trump tried a hail-Mary pass at strong-arming the Secretary of State of Georgia. It didn't work, but it was recorded and leaked. A couple days later, a top GA elections official debunked many of Trump's claims of fraud. 

Column on the big picture. The details about Trump are ludicrous or chilling. But the big picture is of a person who should never have been president, but was. Even more reported: Trump tried to get DOJ officials to declare the election 'corrupt,' and then Trump would execute some unnamed maneuver. 

There are examples of people taking responsibility. Here's one--the official in charge of vaccine distribution incorrectly interpreted the amount of vaccine that would be available for use, and had to tell the states that were getting less. 

A test for Congress

I've been neglecting my blog, and I'm sorry. One reason is that the political situation isn't changing much. The players are staying the same with the same faults and strengths (mostly faults). The Dems continue to want to tax and spend, the GOP continues to want to spend and cut taxes, and Trump continues to bloviate with no substance behind it. Same old same old.

So Trump experimented with a shutdown, and that didn't work out so well for him or the GOP. He ended the shutdown by taking a deal to reopen government at status quo for three weeks. My sister (a federal worker) got to return to work and a paycheck.

During the three weeks, the less stubborn people in Congress would try to work out a deal, and Trump would perhaps throw bombs, but not have the power to nuke them as they worked.

I wasn't at all sure that the people chosen for the negotiation teams would be able to do it. Remember the epic failure of the sequester-alternative committee in 2011? That could certainly happen again, but it didn't. Cooler heads prevailed, and they made a deal.

Predictably, Trump wasn't happy with the results. Dems have a surprisingly strong hand because they can wait out the GOP, who are desperate to make a deal and not get blamed for another shutdown. The Dems were able to make a rock-bottom offer to the GOP, hold their breath, and the GOP negotiators blinked and accepted. (My guess, but the details of the deal will probably bear it out.)

That's how it's gone for the past 7 years. GOP is slow to negotiate, the clock ticks away, and the GOP have to take a crummier deal than they'd get if they'd laid out their positions at a reasonable point in the negotiation process.

If I ever see the GOP negotiating early, I'll let you know. Until then, the GOP can continue to expect unfavorable deals on everything that they can't pass via reconciliation. With the Dems controlling the House, that is everything for the next 1.9 years. My prediction: continued choking by the GOP. Same old same old.

Image: thedhakapost.com

Extras. An inside account of the negotiation, which worked because it was delegated to members of Congress who had respect for one another rather than adversarial relationships. The leaders kept out of the way, mostly. The deal almost fell apart on a poison pill (restricting the number of beds for deportees in process), but that was dropped.

Update 12/2/19. I've been saying for a long time that many of the Republicans can't or won't negotiate. This article shows it again, with GOPers in the Senate doing almost nothing beyond confirming judges and keeping the money moving around (that is, avoiding shutdowns). For the pressing problems in the country, nothing is being done. The problems remain, and the debt keeps rising. Sigh.

Reverse auction in Congress

This is an explanation I developed in my comments on political threads, but I'm finally writing it here. On many issues, the GOP leadership has the choice of two negotiation partners. It can negotiate with the House Freedom Caucus (a more conservative group) or it can negotiate with Dems.

Both the Freedom Caucus and the Dems will try to barter votes for concessions. The GOP will be able to play them off against each other and lower the degree of concessions.

This dynamic was first apparent when the GOP were late again getting to the appropriations bills last September. Dems helped them out by providing votes to pass a clean continuing resolution to keep funding as is. In December, it was the Freedom Caucus' turn to provide the votes, with a clean bill again being passed.

Neither the Dems nor the Freedom Caucus gain much in these clean bills. Many of them want to use their leverage (their votes) to gain concessions. Dems want protection for DACA young people (children brought to the US as illegal aliens). The Freedom Caucus has a big roster of wants, including no concessions on DACA, tougher immigration measures, and more military readiness.

With the 1/19/18 appropriation deadline coming up, both the Dems and the Freedom Caucus were vying to be the partner. The Dems thought they had a deal, but it fell apart. The Freedom Caucus swooped in and made a deal for almost a clean bill--few demands at all. That bill passed the House just one day before the deadline.

The Freedom Caucus agenda is a better fit in general for the GOP. But this is complicated by the slim GOP margin in the Senate, and some very independently-minded GOP senators. Several senators, such as Lindsay Graham and Jeff Flake, want to do an immigration reform deal that is more liberal than what the rest of the GOP senators want. (This is how the Dem deal fell apart. The Dems negotiated only with Lindsay Graham, and the deal was spiked by Trump.) Do Graham and Flake have to willpower to stand strong and send the Freedom Caucus deal to defeat? I rather doubt it.

I think Graham and Flake will have to settle on a lesser immigration deal in the near future, or maybe no deal at all. Democrats have been threatening a filibuster and hinting at a government shutdown if they don't get a deal on DACA. I predict any shutdown will fail. The Dem leadership probably realizes this, so I don't think they would attempt anything more than a token shutdown at most.

Shutdown threats are a blunt instrument, and not useful for getting major changes in potential legislation. Making an advantageous deal is going to be hard for the Freedom Caucus or the Dems. The best deal may be for them have secret talks with as many allies in the GOP establishment as possible, be prepared to make concessions, and then take what they can get. However, this strategy is certain to piss off true believers among the supporters, and get the politicians labeled as sell-outs. But that's the breaks when you negotiate from a position of weakness and you aren't the only potential partner. If someone is ready to trip you and underbid you, you need to be ready to do the same.

Image: nbcnews.com

Short: Is a shutdown looming?

The US federal government runs out of borrowing authority on April 29. The GOP, now that they have the House, Senate, and presidency should be able to avoid a shutdown, and they probably will. However, it's a possibility that a shutdown will still happen because of doctrinaire GOPers who refuse to compromise, and the Dems and main GOP group not reaching a compromise either.

The GOP was almost always terrible at extracting concessions from the Dems in these shutdown showdowns. They didn't know what to ask for, bumbled, fumbled, and waited to the last minute, with predictable results (bad--from their viewpoint).

It seems that the Dems are doing better. They want something specific--the continued funding of an important part of ACA. We'll see how it works out. Here's a fairly short readable article about the issues.

Image: washingtonpost.com

More reflections on the Iran deal

No one wants to admit how tough making this deal was. There's Iran, who is a very tough negotiator. There's a rickety alliance that backed the sanctions. There's the president and Secretary of State Kerry saying it's a good deal, it's the best we could get outside of fantasy land, and look at all these promising aspects. There's the noisy opponents of the deal pretending that we should have walked away and screwed Iran down even more. There are Iranian leaders who point out all the nuclear work they'll still get to do, but don't explain why such a defiant nation went into negotiations.

Who out there is saying that this deal probably has more holes than swiss cheese, but it's still the best we could get?

But think about it some more. This isn't just the best deal we could get, it's also historic. By my reckoning, it's the first deal limiting a nuclear program that has a chance of working.

Our deals with North Korea were failure after failure. Now they have nuclear weapons but are still one of the most benighted countries on Earth. Israel stopped Syria and Iraq from trying to build nuclear weapons by bombing them, not negotiations. With Iraq, it was a temporary setback. Their continued ambitions led to the American-Iraq war and the devastation of their country. Qaddafi in Libya gave up his nuclear program freely and willingly, perhaps sensing his own end, which nuclear weapons wouldn't have prevented.

If Iran actually abides by the agreement, it may be the first successful hard negotiation to prevent a country from going nuclear. That will be a surprising success in a field where failure is the norm.

A-bomb in the oven?

Image: outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com

Extras. One article correctly highlighting how historic this deal is, but perhaps the article is thin on how weak it is. A good look at the problems in the deal, but also the huge obstacles in getting to a deal, including this: "The day [Obama] walked in . . . Iran was already a nuclear threshold state."

The Iran deal--wishing it was better

So the US, France, Russia, the UK, China, Germany, and Iran settled on a nuclear deal after years of negotiations to put sanctions in place and years of negotiations because the sanctions worked in putting the screws on Iran.

The deal is not spectacular. Most countries were hoping that Iran would give up its nuclear enrichment capability. Instead, Iran held fast to its sovereign right, and didn't back down on some enrichment. They could have sent a reassuring message to the world, but that's not what they chose to do.

Instead, they played on weaknesses among the countries supporting the sanctions, and got themselves more leeway for producing nuclear fuel. Yes, there are inspections and limits that they've agree to. But they haven't renounced the capability, as most people hoped they would.

Still, this may be the best deal available to hem them in. The alliance for the sanctions was breaking down. Russia is definitely more belligerent than when they agreed to the sanctions. China rarely wants to forego trading partners, so they were probably not strongly dependable on sanctions.

So maybe this weak deal was the best we could do.

Regional arms race next?

I'm not worried about Israeli reaction to the deal. They already have their nuclear weapons, but those weapons aren't particularly destabilizing. Israel has been suspected of having nukes since the 1960s, and that hasn't caused much of a blip in the Mideast compared to other aspects of Israeli policy.

Iran's nuclear capability causes more worry, partly because it might set off a nuclear arms race in the Mideast. I don't want to imagine what could happen if Saudi Arabia started building nukes. Imagine if ISIS or Boko Harum or a similar successor overran a base and got their hands on nukes. If Saudi Arabia builds nukes, the risk of this kind of scenario would be much higher than we've endured before. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but the risks are definitely there.

So Iran has increased the instability of the Mideast with its nuclear posturing. Sanctions didn't completely stop them, and neither will this deal. I'm not sure whether this deal will increase instability or decrease it. A lot depends on whether Iran misbehaves, and whether other countries will wait to see if Iran misbehaves.

Perhaps this is the best we can do. Iran doesn't want to give up its edge, and they have good reason not to. They have a lot of implacable enemies who wouldn't mind seeing them in ruins. Saudi Arabia would blow them off the planet if they could avoid the consequences of such an action. Lots of countries would blow their enemies to smithereens if they could get away with it. But consequences are unavoidable, and that keeps many people and countries in check.

Cooler heads?

Maybe the Saudis will realize that Iran assures its own destruction (by the US or others) if they ever use nuclear weapons, and therefore the Saudis won't start their own nuclear program. Maybe the Iranians will realize it too, and not proceed to building and testing a bomb.

I've really got to hope for that, since actually stopping them would take entail a huge war--bigger than anything since WWII. No country has the stomach for that.

Image: maxpark.com

Extras. I have a strange argument with a hawk who focuses, oddly, on UN issues. His thesis is that Russia and China would be too embarrassed to break a standing sanctions regime. Color me dubious about this claim.

Interesting article that delves into this question: "Is Iran an irrational rogue state or a rational, cooperating party?" Much of the success of the sanctions were due to US financial centrality, and the US could still exercise that power if Iran backslides. Read the funny/devastating tweets in this article.

Short: Iran negotiates, but will the Senate approve?

Here's a fascinating article about the negotiations between the US and Iran. It doesn't focus on centrifuges or which sanctions need to stay, or on timetables, or any of that boring but important stuff.

Instead, it focuses on the elephant in the room. If Obama makes a deal with Iran, there's no fucking way that the Senate will approve it. No fucking way at all.

It doesn't take much reflection to see that this observation is true. The readers are probably nodding their heads in agreement right now. So, chances are that the Iranians know it too. Yet they are still negotiating.

I think they want a settlement and want to be part of global trade much more than they want nuclear weapons. That makes sense, because you can't eat nuclear weapons, live in them, or play them on your Xbox. You can't shoot them at people without HUGE repercussions either. Food, housing, and game consoles are much more practical, and maybe that's what Iranians really want. That's the better choice. Good on you, Iran. I hope it remains that way.

The Senate went nuclear, but Iran isn't... maybe?

Image: telegraph. co,uk

Big/small deal: Political analysis

In my last post I discussed some of the fiscal aspects of the deal--the simple math, walking back part of the sequester, some fees--mostly small stuff.

The bigger impact of the deal is that it's a two-year budget. There won't be a government shutdown for two years. This is an even longer period than that covered by the August 2011 deal, which laid out the budget until after the next big election. Why is this for a longer period, instead of until after the next election? A good question to ponder.

The deal doesn't include debt ceiling increases. Why? To allow the Tea Party congressional members to do a bit of grandstanding and vote against the debt ceiling several times. The debt ceiling increases will pass with enough votes from Republicans and amid charges of RINOism and treason. Yawn.

The Tea Partyers and their organizations are trying to raise a ruckus over this deal, but John Boehner told them to shut up. Besides, it's a done deal because THE HOUSE ALREADY PASSED IT!!!!! Wow, that was fast, and was planned to be that way. The House gets to adjourn and soon the Senate will rubberstamp the deal too. And everyone goes home for Christmas unlike last year. If you're taking a Christmas trip to a national park or monument, they'll be open and staffed. [House vote: GOP 169-62, Dem 162 -32.]

The Tea Party is a clear loser in this. The only leverage they'll have is the very dangerous debt-default-no-debt-ceiling-increase gambit. Their numbers aren't high enough to carry out that dynamite trick, but they can still make noise about it. This article points out that Paul Ryan gains stature as an adult politician when you need one. No one is writing the same about Patty Murray (I just checked). She's still a hack in my book, but she can be a good little sock puppet for Harry Reid when he needs her.

So, what will the two parties do in the next two years? They could start the really tough negotiations on Medicare, Medicaid, and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. They could lob mudballs at each other for the next 11 months until the 2014 midterm elections. The GOP could continue its Cold Civil War, and it could completely explode. Since it doesn't take that many people to negotiate, we could have all this possibilities playing out at the same time. Any negotiations that occur will be only exploratory because each side will want to wait for the outcome of the midterm elections in hope for an improvement in their position. (I should clarify who might negotiate: the establishment GOP, the establishment Dems, certainly not the Tea Party GOP.)

This is a better outcome than I was expecting. They compromised without kicking and screaming, and actually changed the terms from the previous testy agreement. That shows a modicum of flexibility where I hadn't expected any. Wow. Merry Christmas, everyone. Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.

Image: itmakessenseblog.com

Short: View from inside Reid's office

Insider reporting is a mixed bag. It's great to find out what's in the minds of the decision makers or deal makers, but such news stories are often stuffed with the glorification of minutiae. This article, evidently sourced from inside Harry Reid's office, is better than most. It shows the successful partnership and political strategy used by Obama and Reid in this fall's budget negotiation. Yes, the same negotiation where the GOP was switching game plans twice a day.

Here's a summary through my jaded viewpoint: Reid is angry at Obama for giving too much in other negotiations. They agree to a united front and they pull it off. 

What is missing is a concern about the next election, and how this deal would help the position of the Dems with respect to the electorate. Instead, the focus is what the Dem elected officials hope to get or avoid giving up in the negotiations--not a bigger picture. How they decide which positions they should stake out and why those are good positions for them, or more importantly good for the country, that's the inside story I'd love to read.

Image: cnn.com

Chamberlain capitulates to the mullahs

I was quite happy to hear that Iran, the US, and five other countries had come to a deal to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program. It seems like a win-win situation to me:

• Iran gets to move away from its prideful but destabilizing nuclear program.
• Nuclear worries are cooled.
• Iran gets to start trading again and get out of its spiraling poverty.

My biggest worry is that it could be a whitewash. Iran is eager for looser sanctions, but will it continue its program and give the world a nuclear surprise a la Pakistan or North Korea?

News Source - National Review

When I start my reading with National Review, I find out that this is the biggest mistake since blah, blah, blah, something with Hitler. Sorry, as everyone knows, it's the Munich accords with Hitler, which allowed Hitler to take over a large piece of Czechoslovakia.

Wow, if John Kerry and Obama, not to mention the other countries, have done a Munich-like agreement, why would they have big announcements? Maybe I should find out what's in this horrible agreement. So I google, and find this handy list of the provisions from CNN. It's too long to repeat, but it seems pretty good.

Iran's going to de-enrich its 20% enriched uranium and allow daily inspections. Most of the sanctions stay in place while the enforcer nations see if Iran fulfills its part of the bargain. As a carrot, there is some easing of sanctions. That sounds really good!!! ... as well it should because the list is taken from the White House press release.

Nonetheless, National Review is sorely lacking in its own list of what's wrong with the deal. In the list wars, the White House has won hands-down. That may not be a good way to judge, but the WH provided a damn good list and NRO provided article after article of warmed-over Hitler comparisons. Fourteen articles in all, and no list! Come on, tell me some solid reasons why this is a repeat of the accord that gave free rein to Hitler.

Evaluation Sorely Lacking

I didn't find a strong critique of the deal, so I'm left hoping that it's as good as it sounds. But it's not just me. One commenter reports that the Israeli stock market is soaring! WAY TO GO!!!!

What I didn't realize that the sanctions weren't meant to convince Iran to give up nuclear weapons programs. Instead, they were meant to collapse the Iranian government:

"Realists knew that the sanctions were good for only one purpose: to weaken the regime to the point where it would collapse or be overthrown."--National Review

Stupid me. Regime change was so good in Iraq and Afghanistan that we want it for the even more populous country of Iran. What a plan! That won't destabilize the mideast at all. No wonder the Israeli stock market is cheering.

[Apology: I didn't mean to turn this post into a rant. I honestly wanted to find out more about this agreement. Something in me got wound up by those 14 stories in NRO. I didn't get to chill out because among the Google top news for the US, the Iran story didn't even make an appearance.]

Image: jihadwatch.org

Extras. A more balanced piece in National Review. It reports that Iran's concessions will set its enrichment program back only a few months, with some checkable details. Fareed Zakaria tries to sort it out. George Will declares that Iran will get the bomb for sure now.

Some typical "Munich" rhetoric with an ironic kicker:

"There is not a good record, from Philip of Macedon to Hitler to Stalin in the 1940s to Carter and the Soviets in the 1970s to radical Islamists in the 1990s, of expecting authoritarians and thugs to listen to reason, cool their aggression, and appreciate democracies’ sober and judicious appeal to logic — once they sense in the West greater eagerness to announce new, rather than to enforce old, agreements."--National Review

But wait, didn't the Soviets do just that, cool their aggression, and change their ways without a massive war? Nah, it couldn't ever work that way again.

Image: youviewed.com

Next phase: Rejecting the offers

In late September, all the offers to continue funding government came attached to poison pills for Obamacare. Obama and the Dems unsurprisingly said "no" with a great deal of firmness.

Now there is a flurry of offers minus those poison apples for Obamacare, but Obama and the Dems are still saying "no." The House GOP made an unbelievably generous offer of extending the debt limit for six weeks, keeping the government shut down, not alternating Obamacare yet, and holding negotiations with Obama (still the great enemy, but one who must be negotiated with). Obama said "no," and the House GOP are so hurt and insulted that they won't be trying to be reasonable like that again for a while.

So the playing field shifts to the Senate. The Dems voted on their wishlist, but lost 53-45 because 60 is the new 51 in the Senate. Susan Collins (R-Maine) offered a 3 month debt limit extension, six months of government funding, and a 2-year delay in the medical device tax in Obamacare. Harry Reid rejected that offer--it sounds like he didn't even allow a vote. These Dems are getting so picky about these offers.

It's easy to understand both sides want to maximize what they get, but I hope the Dems don't overdo it. We better not go into default over a $19 billion differential and a delay to one of several funding provisions in Obamacare.

Not that I think we'll reach default. The Senate Dems and GOP are quite close, and they're still talking, so they'll get closer still. They'll hammer out a deal and pass it with probably 65+ votes (had originally predicted 70, but I'm a bit more pessimistic one day later).

Then it will be up to the House to eat crow and sign on, or plunge the country and entire world into financial uncertainty. The majority in the House aren't that stubborn or stupid, so we will have an agreement. Hoorah! Our parks will reopen, cancer research can resume, the House gym will reopen for House idiot and hero alike, hundred of minor or larger annoyances will end, and my furloughed sister can get back to working too hard. We'll also finally have the budget negotiations we should have had five months ago. Sigh. So much sturm und drang.

Image: tundratabloids.com

Extra. What should sidelined Tea Partiers do? Hunt RINOs, throw accusations, beatify Ted Cruz, and send Hail Mary checks to Tea Party groups and candidates.

Edit 10/14/13. Concerning how many votes the deal will get in the Senate: I'm not a voter counter. I don't know all the electoral considerations that will drive individual senators. However, I think that a fair number of GOP senators would like to be able to say that they helped avert a default.

GOP wants negotiations, eh? Part 3

Here's how we'll know when the GOP are serious about negotiations:

• They'll pass a Continuing Resolution and debt limit with no strings that will last at least two months. This will give time for negotiations without giving away leverage for an eventual deal.
• They'll approve a conference committee. That will show that they're willing to vote straight up or down on the results of the negotiations, with no filibuster or other blocking maneuver by the Tea Party caucus.
• The leadership will shut up about defunding or delaying Obamacare. At this point, they've mostly ended these attempts, but it's a negative sign if they start up again.

Here are signs you won't see so don't expect them:

• The GOP will sound more conciliatory. 
• Tea Party republicans will relent.

These developments are necessary to move ahead with negotiations. The GOP are going to be very pissed. However, horribly angry politicians still manage to make deals, so I'm not giving up hope even if both parties sound a billion miles apart and express utter contempt for each other. That will be the same situation as in summer 2011, which was the last difficult deal the parties made. (Who would have thought I'd look back longingly for those days?)

It's unlikely that the GOP will become serious all at once. There will probably be a short debt ceiling deal first, maybe just a few weeks. The next extension for a longer period will herald the onset of serious dealing.

Here is something I wish the GOP would realize: they've operated with just two approaches to divided government. The first was negotiation amid intense acrimony. The second was confrontation without negotiation. The first approach resulted in the Budget Control Act of August 2011. The second approach has resulted in the capitulation by the GOP. So, really, for the GOP, the choice is negotiation or humiliation. Why is this such a hard choice for them?

Image: therpf.com

GOP wants negotiations, eh? Part 2

Robert Costa, the National Review reporter with all the recent GOP inside scoops, directed his twitter followers to this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Paul Ryan. Of course I read it.

Paul Ryan sounds reasonable--he wants "a breakthough" instead of a crisis. He correctly identifies mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as the biggest fiscal challenges. He wants to "talk specifics" and get the "conversation" going.

But here's what he doesn't say:

• He doesn't say how the negotiations should be conducted, or what timeframe is reasonable. You can't do any important reform of entitlements in less than three months, and it probably should be longer. We'll need a fairly long-lasting Continuing Resolution and debt limit to do that. Ryan isn't brave enough to admit this forthrightly.
• He lauds the 1982 SS reform, especially the rise in the retirement age. For some reason, he doesn't mention the major increase in the SS tax rate. Actually, we know the reason. He can't mention a tax increase because it's forbidden among "conservatives."
• He lauds the Medicare reform proposals he and Senator Wyden made, but ignores that he misrepresented Wyden's position and greatly angered Wyden in the process.
• He doesn't mention Obamacare, so delaying it, defunding it, or repealing it doesn't seem to be part of his plan, at least in this op-ed.

Of course he's right that both sides ought to sit down and talk. The Tea Party GOP members haven't allowed that because talk can lead to compromise, and compromise means the end of America. I don't know if Ryan is serious about new negotiations. This could be the mask of rationality over the same partisanship that's prevailed for the last 5 years. I don't trust Ryan when he says he supports "common-sense" reform. Normally Ryan equates "common-sense" as the GOP proposals. Back in 2011, he rejected the best common-sense proposals, which came from the Simpson-Bowles commission.

So I don't trust him. I'd like to see how he follows up on these suggestions. How specific does he get? Once I see that, I'll know whether he's serious or not. I won't give up on him at this point because a mildly reasonable Republican leader is an extremely rare and helpful thing right now.

Ready for heavy negotiating, or just the same old?

Image: uselectionatlas.org

GOP sets the table for a debt fight

I haven't been hearing previews of the next big fiscal fight between the Dems and the GOP. If you recall, the GOP keeps saying they're going to stand firm and make the Dems give ground in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling. Then each time the GOP capitulates. Well, at least that's what's happened every time after their success in August 2011.

But this time will be different, the GOP leaders swear. Let's just check on that. Hmm, it seems that the GOP has a menu of concessions it wants. They want entitlement reform based on Paul Ryan's formula (yes, that losing formula). If that's doesn't lure Obama into a deal, there's tax reform along GOP guidelines. Further down the menu there's a demand that Obama gut Obamacare and/or approve the Keystone pipeline.

There's a huge problem in the GOP plans. They amount to inviting Obama to come to a table to eat crow. But Obama doesn't have to eat crow. If the GOP wants a negotiation, it needs to set out more tempting options, and they need to be more pleasant dinner company. However, the GOP isn't ideologically ready for that, so it's acting to type.

Here's what will happen: Obama will call the bluff, not negotiate, and also show that the GOP isn't negotiating either. The debt ceiling will approach, and (say it in unison) the GOP will capitulate.

The GOP isn't actually getting ready for a fight or a negotiation. If they were, they would be doing a media blitz on their ideas in an attempt to gain momentum in popular opinion. They aren't doing that, so there won't be a swell of support that pushes Obama to the table. He can simply resist, and let the concerns about government shutdown overwhelm the GOP position.

This is so obvious to me, and I'm no guru of political analysis. Why isn't it clear to the leaders of the GOP? I've got to conclude that they know they're in a stalemate, but they're trying to keep morale up. In the end, they'll declare victory in stopping Obama from raising taxes. Very likely they'll also have the fig leaf of appropriation deals that keep the status quo going one more year. Hoorah for our great heroes!!!

The wonderland of GOP negotiations

Image: democracyforvancouver.org

Extras. The author of this article discussions the GOP strategy. She also predicts that immigration reform will happen in the House after it's too late for primary challenges.

My apologies for this additional boring installment in my series about our frozen politics. My point--no major changes, status quo budgets. Yawn.

Obama's budget dilemma

Obama has a constitutional requirement to submit a budget. It makes sense, but I didn't realize this was a constitutional requirement. [Correction, it's not a constitutional requirement--see comments below.]

So many times the budgets have been DOA (dead on arrival), so they didn't matter. The budgets were ridiculed, often well-deserved, and the real deals were worked out as continuing resolutions (CR). We've been funding our federal spending with continuing resolutions are several years in a row, and we've probably done that before under other presidents too. Big deal, what's the difference, meh...

This time the GOP is trying to make this budget matter. Their new stance is that the budget has to be something that can pass, so it will have to include enough cuts to satisfy the GOP-controlled House, and Obama will have to name the cuts.

Last year Obama offered a ridiculous, partisan budget which didn't receive a single vote (if that right-wing talking point is true). By the way, it didn't matter because the debt ceiling deal of August 2011 had settled the spending questions: there was going to be a CR describing the federal expenditures for 2012. It was settled, minor squabbles aside.

Obama's Challenge

So, this year Obama has to decide:

• Is he going to present another partisan budget that goes nowhere, or
• Is he going to present a real budget that can be the basis of negotiations?

I don't know which Obama is going to choose. I can tell you one thing, though, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the second/better option. Obama has disappointed when it comes to forward thinking.

Equal Opportunity Challenge

It's really too bad. I believe that the first party that develops a reasonable budget wins big for being realistic and credible leaders. They have a great chance to guide our governmental focus for the next generation. Yet no one is leaping up to do it out of fear of  'owning the cuts' and taking the backlash.

I don't think that's what will happen. The backlash won't land on the reasonable, it will land on the most unreasonable. The Dems won the 2012 election because they negotiated in 2011, and they showed that they were ready and willing to settle on a reasonable compromise. In the 2012 campaign, they sounded like they weren't going to reverse that compromise in 2013 if reelected.

The Republicans have yet to show that they will negotiate. They end up in negotiation, but too late, only after the Dems show they won't simply capitulate. It's no wonder the GOP didn't win the presidency. Who wants to give too much power to people like that?

So, Mr. Obama, please recognize that you can take that big step and grab the mantle of a reasonable, clear-thinking leader. You'll never have a better chance to do this, because, ha!, you've already been reelected. Do it. Lead on this one.

(Still not holding my breath. It's less than a 50% chance. Lots of room to be pleasantly surprised,  though.)

Hasn't happened yet. Will it?

Image: leadershipspirit.wordpress.com

Voters to government: Do it over

(Prologue: This was written soon after the election. I don't why I didn't publish it then. It seems pretty good to me, with an acerbic viewpoint that's worth reading. Late but still timely.)

Some, who were reluctant to negotiate, are now trying to do it on double-time. Yes, I mean the GOP leadership. That's what happens when you save a year's worth of work for the end of the semester lame-duck session.

Why did the electorate inflict this on our elected officials?

Well, it's not as though the US electorate is a coordinated organism. But there may be some wisdom of crowds here. After all, what are the alternatives to split government? All Dem or all GOP. We collectively said "Spare me." (Well, that's my take. Interpretations differ.)

Image: t.co

Mano a mano negotiations

The negotiations on fiscal cliff are limited to two people--President Obama and Speaker Boehner. Thanks be to God!

The last thing we need is a lot of Congress people thinking they'll have an outsized voice on this. They don't have a special insight into the will of the people, though many of them are claiming to. It's torture watching the Sunday morning talk shows (mercifully shortened here).

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) says he'd vote to raise taxes if there was significant progress on entitlement reform. It's good higher taxes are on his radar because they're coming no matter how he and the rest of the Senate vote.

Over on CNN, a reality-based Republican (Tom Cole) is sounding sensible because he wants to pass what both sides agree on--keeping the tax rates for the lower 98%. Meanwhile, Marsha Blackburn seems to think she'll have a chance to vote to keep all the tax cuts. She won't.

Despite lingering anger or cluelessness, whispers of rebellion against Boehner subsided (after peaking on Dec. 6). Enough GOP reps have realized that they'll just have to trust him to make the best deal he can. Holding the tax rates on the middle class as hostage isn't going to work since Obama is itching to call that bluff (despite Marsha Blackburn) and see the blame rain down on the GOP.

Boehner still has the threat of shutting down government over the debt ceiling or appropriation bills. Rather, his caucus wields that threat, and they might very well use it if Obama gives them nothing. (If Obama gives nothing, the blame will quickly switch direction to rain on him.) So there is strong incentive on both sides to negotiate.

The biggest problem for the GOP is its pride in not compromising for 99% of four years. That's a hard habit to break. So it's good that they have one designated negotiator to make those hard decisions, and do what the rest of the GOP can't. It shows that there is not always strength in numbers. More particularly, there isn't always wisdom in a crowd.

The Dems kept pretty quiet during the campaign and didn't jinx themselves with the usual moral blather about our duty to [expensively] take care of society's ills. Will they be able to keep quiet when the deal isn't as advantageous as they had hoped as the election returns rolled in? I certainly hope so. The memory of the flogging in 2010 of overreaching Democrats should be fresh enough that they don't need too much of a reminder.

So, I say, let Obama and Boehner hash it out. Run all the rest of the cooks out of the kitchen, close the door, and see what kind of sausage they make. It can't be worse than the freaking awful dreck Congress would serve up if more of them were involved.

Putting their heads together

Image: draftdaysuit.com

The GOP's big risk that backfired

Conservatives had bet big on being able to defeat the Democrats and take control of the federal government. They were largely successful in 2010, retaking the House and almost capturing the Senate. But in this election, they fell far short.

The GOP now has to settle for much less as they deal with taxes and spending reductions. They were strongest in 2011, with the debt ceiling looming. However, they lost that advantage by stubbornly resisting increased taxes on the wealthy. This was an explicit promise most Republicans had made (the Norquist-imposed pledge not to raise taxes). The implicit penalty for any Republican breaking the pledge was to face a stiff primary challenge. So, between stubbornness and fear, no-new-revenue was their unalienable position.

 The Cost of Maintaining Sacred Cows

They gave up a lot to maintain that position. They probably could have gotten deeper budget cuts in a broad range of programs, and maybe would have been seen as serious "adult" budget realists. But serious spending reform doesn't happen quickly, so you have to be willing to spend several months in negotiations. The Dems were willing to do that, but the GOP grandstanded for too long and spiked negotiations at least once. In the end, the GOP were backed into the corner by a hard deadline, and had to take the only no-new-revenue deal the Dems offered. (And the Dems stacked the deck so it was an extremely disadvantageous deal.) Essentially, the GOP lost the budget negotiations over no-new-revenue in 2011.

"The Situation"

They are poised to lose in the current negotiations too. The situation is eerily similar:

• There is a huge fiscal issue with a detonation date.
• Negotiations that should take months have to be squeezed into a few weeks. 
• The Republicans risk being nationally hated spoilers unless they seriously negotiate.

So, they are back in this position because they went for broke on their philosophy and agenda, hoping that they could win it all and simply impose their solutions.

 The Perks of Flexibility

I can't accuse the Dems of doing the same thing. They said they were putting everything on the table. The Dems never walked away and even offered a higher target for spending cuts in 2011. They didn't have sacred cows that they had to protect at all costs. The GOP could have asked for all the cuts they dreamed of, and they might have gotten a substantial number of them. But only if they were willing to make some big concessions too. However, the GOP weren't willing to do that.

This has been a lesson to me in negotiations, but it seems that the wise men of the GOP didn't learn what I learned, because they are back in the same situation this year. The best they can do is retrieve their crib notes from 2011 of what the Dems offered in their "grand bargain" and try to embarrass the Dems into accepting the deal now. But the headlines for "grand bargain" are decidedly unoptimistic.

Prepare for the Downside

This is also a reminder to me that you always have to consider the downside risks. What should you do in case the market falls, sales stall, or you miss your electoral goals? You better have a plan. The GOP didn't. That makes them even bigger losers, and it didn't come from the voters.

...but don't choke on it.

Image: nytimes.com

PS. I don't consider this deeply insightful. I think lots of people share this perception. However, the GOP hasn't acknowledged this situation since the election, so I decided to write explicitly about it and commit it to pixels. Perhaps many more Repubs are saying "oops" now.

Extra. An explanation of the Dem bargaining position regarding higher tax rates vs. a cap on deductions. 

Campaign message: Running against crazy

In politics, one of the most important tasks is to stop the crazy extremes in the other party. In fact, that's often the top agenda item because it's easier to block the other party than to gather up enough votes to make your policies happen.

It was ostensibly the agenda for the GOP after their losses in 2008, and it's been the agenda for the Senate and Obama since the GOP swept the House in 2010.

In this campaign, it makes sense for the GOP to talk about its agenda (tax reform, spending cuts, tax cuts, defense buildup, etc.) because they might actually get to enact this agenda. For the Dems, they have so little chance of displacing the House GOP that it hardly matters what their agenda is. If Dems talk non-stop about what they're going to do, they sound delusional. So they should be talking about what GOP plans they're going to stop.

Obama is already starting this. But it should be a centerpiece. They can line up what the GOP says it's going to do, and give the plans a critique. The GOP say they'll do 'A,' but really you'll get 'B' and 'B' has these negative consequences. The GOP has been doing a great critique on the Dems for years--that's what "tax-and-spend" is.

Frankly, the Dems can make a good case not to trust the GOP to do tax reform. If the environment is a high priority for you, you already don't trust the GOP on pollution regulation. If you depend on some government program or you're a federal employee (insert shout out to a family member), you probably don't trust how the GOP will trim (slash) spending.

For those concerned about Social Security and Medicare, it's not as clear-cut. Both the Dems and GOP are trying to trim the growth of the programs, particularly Medicare, so either or both can arouse suspicion. Since the GOP are going to attack the method the Dems are using to trim Medicare, the Dems might as well attack the GOP plans.

One other terribly important campaign point for the Dems--they can say that they are open to negotiating. That's a message not coming from the GOP. Of course that message can demoralize the Dem base, but if they remind their base what an unfettered GOP will do, the base should turn out.

I'd give the same advice about negotiating to the GOP, but their position has been pretty clear: our way or the highway. I doubt they'll be making any conciliatory noises unless they're way down in opinion polling or the election results split governing power between the parties (my preferred government configuration in any case).

So, to recap, my advice to Dems is:

• Paint a believable but wretched picture of what the unfettered GOP will do.
• Emphasize that you can stop that without going crazy in the other direction.
• Make reasonable noises about negotiating, which is what the country will need in the most likely outcome from the election.

Finally, I have to admit that I don't expect that the Dems will actually campaign this way. There seems to be an unwritten rule that parties pretend they're going to win the triple crown, even when they're entering the race a little lame.

Will they try it? Do you think it will work? It'll take a miracle.

Image: emmaberry.org