JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 8, 2011
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The budget impasse seems to hinge as much as anything else on the fate of a series of "riders" -- measures attached the the budget by the House GOP that don't have anything to do with the budget:
Top budget staff, after working through the night, returned Thursday morning with a proposed $34.5 billion in cuts, with $3 billion of that to come from the Pentagon.
Democrats said Mr. Boehner insisted that any deal also include some of so-called policy riders, which they argued injected conservative ideology into what should be a numbers battle.
“This is no longer about the budget deficit,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “It’s about bumper stickers.”
What are these riders? OMB Watch has listed them, and Eli Lehrer summarizes. Most of them are favors for narrow special interests:
The media-popular idea idea that the budget fight is driven by the GOP’s cultural-conservative wing seems overblown. There are three provisions (out of nearly 100) that relate to abortion: one applies only the District of Columbia, one only to international organizations, and one only to Planned Parenthood. (And, given a federal court ruling that a more-or-less identical law about ACORN was unconstitutional, the last won’t stand up in court.) I’m pro-life myself and honestly I can’t see much of a reason to get excited about any of these provisions. ...
For all the wish-list-making involved in the health care fight, the much longer list of environment-related riders looks like it was written almost entirely by specific industry lobbyists who have good relationships with certain members of Congress. Although there are some very broad efforts that would end virtually every climate-change or carbon-regulation program in the government, most of the environmental efforts are very narrow and, one assumes, serve a very few interests.
Among other things, there are specific provisions that suspend a very particular rule related to cement making, end an obscure wetlands conservation program, change the treatment of coal ash as a pollutant, and end funding for a particular dam removal study in California. These are the stuff of typical budget riders and whether they are good or bad policy, it’s hard to see most of the bill’s non-climate change environmental provisions as anything other than the result of very narrow interest-group politics.
It's not surprising that the Republicans are giving narrow business interests such an outsized role in policymaking. My question is: is it normal for a party that controls just one chamber of th House to insist it must move policy in its direction, on numerous fronts, as a condition for allowing the government to continue? I don't remember Democrats doing this when they controlled two houses starting in 2007.
16 comments
This is a defining moment for BHO and the Dems. They are in this position of weakness because when in a position of political power they acted weakly to counter a set of Repub politicans who make intransigent demands to continue problems the Repubs largely created--- and wish to enact policies to make them worse. A confrontation really is needed. It may not work.. a government shutdown may lead to further economic and policy disasters for BHO and the Dems. tThat is an unknown. Implementing Republican demands once again is a known economic and policy disaster. Shutting the government down has the large added advantage of showing everyone, including Tea Partiers, that government IS needed. A point that BHO can't otherwise effectively make and Tea Partiers can't understand or accept until it actually affects them.
- drofnats1
April 8, 2011 at 9:38am
The court jester (and know-it-all) makes another appearance.
- liberalref
April 8, 2011 at 10:24am
re: lib ref aka blue dog. Reality really sucks, doesn't it ?
- drofnats1
April 8, 2011 at 10:29am
The problem, as I see it, is that because President Obama is acting like an honest broker for the independent vote and he can't sit at meetings with Boehner and then come out and say, "Mr. Boehner is unreasonable." The Republicans are trying to couch the riders as budget issues and the Democrats need to either convince the independents that the cuts are not a budget issue or, instead, replace the riders with other cuts for the purpose demonstrating same.
- Nusholtz
April 8, 2011 at 10:46am
It must, because you take refuge from it all of the time. You fantasize that a virtually unlimited quantity of executive power exists. In the real world, it does not (note: do not confuse the silly thoughts that course through your cranium with reality). A few months back, I read an excellent book, On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit, by the presidential scholar, George C. Edwards III, who clearly demonstrated the limits of presidential power. Unlike you, Edwards actually knows something, which is always a plus (gee, I wonder who is smarter, Edwards or dro? That's a tough one). You just keeping chanting your ideological mantras; you suffer from epistemic closure of the left. Again I do not if you are as fatuous as you look or you just aim to be annoying. The sad thing is that is impossible to tell which you are. I am not a deficit hawk in the short term, I wish to see another economic stimulus issue from the federal government, so therefore, I am far from the sensibilities of the Blue Dogs. But that doesn't stop you from retailing your inanities. You are such a genius that you wrote about Blue Dog senators last year; they are all members of the House.
- liberalref
April 8, 2011 at 10:49am
A good thread to keep in mind the next time libref clutches his pearls and swoons with a case of the "I don't make personal attacks!" vapors. And all over a perfectly reasonable couple of comments, too. Chait has had a pretty good track record of framing issues and debates lately, and this is another home run for him. "Are the Republicans REALLY going to shut down the government over special interest demands that have nothing to do with the budget?" should be on the lips of every Dem in front of a camera or at a keyboard today. According to TPM, the Dems have agreed to $38 billion in cuts, which Boehner could easily use to claim a huge victory. The overreach is fairly breathtaking.
- W_Bombay
April 8, 2011 at 11:04am
I also find the carping tiresome, but in defense of libref, the "BHO is a shill/wuss because he doesn't exercise his omnipotence to make the world the way I wish it is" narrative is pretty tiresome as well.
- miceelf
April 8, 2011 at 11:13am
Dro is a huge fantasist. I thought you were more hip to the actual world, Dr. Bombay, but perhaps not. As for personal attacks, I note that you say nothing of dro's ridiculous and repeated contention that I am a Blue Dog. So it only works one way. But of course. I am not popular put here because I don't go in for groupthink. Liberals like to fancy themselves as tolerant; what an absurdity, as a general proposition. Also, I like the inconsistent fools out here who pretend to be against personal attacks (there are a few honest, consistent ones). No personal attack against a conservative is too low to use - use it and not one Bombay will object. Also, personal attacks on the likes of rationale are acceptable, or even on a staunch liberal like myself, who contends against double standards. I think you would fit quite comfortably in the Ministry of Information in Beijing, Bombay. Or in the government of the theocrats in Tehran. I mean stylistically, of course, and not politically.
- liberalref
April 8, 2011 at 11:22am
Thank you, mice, I think. That narrative is not only tiresome, it is untrue. Also, one question for you Bombay: Who do you think knows more, the presidential scholar, George C. Edwards III or dro? Also, the cheap moralism and the inferior comments that predominate out here are tiresome in the extreme. But few seem to mind this, or rather, many actual revel in this, because the task at hand is to bash Republicans with the biggest club that they can find. Now I am a huge fan of the econblog, Marginal Revolution, put up by Tyler Cowen and his colleague, Alex Tabarrok, though I disagree with their politics often enough. But what is far more edifying and pleasurable to read, MR, or the comment section of TNR Online? I leave it to the intelligent reader to decide.
- liberalref
April 8, 2011 at 11:30am
It occurs to me that this clearly highlights the fallacy of the "both sides do it" type of moderates. They have an agreement on the budget numbers, but the government is going to be shutdown because now the Republicans want all their Riders, too. If Obama lets himself get tarred for this, I'll still vote for him but he'll deserve the inevitable loss in 2012.
- GSpinks
April 8, 2011 at 11:36am
liberalref, if you are complaining about the quality of discourse on TNR, unprovokedly attacking other posters personally will not raise that quality.
- zardoz67
April 8, 2011 at 11:47am
To put it in terms you can't fail to understand, libref: In this thread, when it comes to name-calling, you started it. Just like you started it in the thread about Mississippi Republicans and interracial marriage. You zoomed in to call zardoz "banal" after you left a comment there that was, let's face, every bit as banal as his, if not moreso. And yet later today, or next Tuesday, or maybe April 27, you will sputter incredulously and claim you never, ever, never ever personally attack your fellow TNR commenters. I won't call you an "inconsistent fool," like you called me, but you're awfully inconsistent. As for personal attacks against Republicans: I readily admit I do it. I do it because, oh, say Sarah Palin for example, is a horrible person. rationale is a horrible person who never even attempts to engage in discussion here, so I feel no shame in criticizing him/her/it. On the other hand, I can think of a few other posters here I don't agree with, but I don't chime in with a bitchy "Another idiot comment from an idiot" every time they say something. Here, though, you called drofmats two names because he committed the crime of voicing an opinion (and again, one that is not at all unreasonable, even if you don't agree with it). Now I'm an "inconsistent fool" because I criticize some people but not others, and I'd fit in nicely with a thuggish, closed-minded regime like Beijing or Tehran, you say. (No names were actually called there, but: personal attack.) You have more ongoing feuds than Sarah herself, it seems, and like her you never bother to to ponder why that is. "Woody and zardoz and drofmats and roid and ick sure are all a bunch of poopyheads -- or, is it ... me?" Maybe you're right, maybe you're an honest, imminently reasonable, no-nonsense genius. Any time someone criticizes you, it's because they're in jealous awe of you. They hate you for your freedoms.
- W_Bombay
April 8, 2011 at 12:35pm
Lib, we have a test on how much the bully pulpit DOES matter many times. In the mid 90s Bill Clinton called the GOP on the carpet and when the gov't was shutdown not once but twice. The GOP was blamed fully. Clinton made damn sure they got the blame and his bully pulpit made the difference. Contrast it to this time: Obama refuses to do that and now both sides are getting the blame when it's brazen a goodly swath of the GOP wants a shutdown with their "all or nothing" mantra. The GOP got the numbers they want but pull the football away like Lucy at the last second yet we don't hear that in press reports. See any differences in how each side is perceived? I sure do. Both sides are getting blamed this time unlike last time. For once I'd like to see him beat up on the GOP like Bill did, just once.
- tmmats
April 8, 2011 at 12:38pm
Well, libref, your welcome, and I assumed "it's not true" was implicit in what i said. The narrative would be sad but not tiresome if it was, in fact, true. There's a kernel of truth in there- Obama COULD have handled things better politically in the past couple of years, but he was really hamstrung by senate dems in particular.
- miceelf
April 8, 2011 at 12:59pm
Ad hominem attacks aside. What all too many at tnr are ignoring is that BHO and the Dems have already lost in major ways by negotiating down, and then touting the success of, a too-small stimulus package, weak immediate health care reform and cost containment, maintaining Iraq/Afghan wars, caving on the tax package, and NOT resolving the debt-limit and 2011 fiscal budget when they had supermajorities or near-super majorities. their weakness and incompetence in exercising political power have got them where they are. And many Progressives have been predicting the consequences for years. Ending the Senate vetoo and passing an adequate stimulus bill should have been job#1 two years ago. Now the debate is about how much more BHO and especially Senate Dems will cave-- and then call it a victory and enable future cuts that dimish or prevent economic recovery and job growth. With a budget deal giving away much of the rest of the current social net, BHO and Senate Leaders will announce the economic equivalent of "Peace in our time". BHO may be re-elected because of the current greater stupidity of the Repubs, but that's equivalent to the success of a bright, non-confrontational, but politically foolish Nevile Chamberlain type beating a right-wing nut of an opponent. The general situation is of caving in to agressive, non-negotiable demands. A serious argument can be made that the best that can happen is failure of such a pusillaninous agreement sooner than later. Google: 1930's and Rhineland, Ethiopia, Czechoslovakia, Albania. Or Barbary Pirates and Thomas Jefferson as a counter example. It's not a right or left issue, it's an issue of human behavior.
- drofnats1
April 8, 2011 at 5:32pm
drofnats, no one is ignoring what you describe. Rather, they interpret events differently. In the health care reform package, I am not at all clear on what Obama was supposed to do vis-a-vis senate dems. Yes, in an ideal world, you would have a solid sixty votes that didn't include people like nelson and baucus, but here in the real world, we did in fact have those people. As well, even middle of the road dems were against ending the senate veto. Once again, you seem to be insisting that if only Obama behaved differently everything else in the world would magically fall to his will. In all seriousness, that's the same attitude that underlay Bush's foreign policy approach.
- miceelf
April 9, 2011 at 10:41am