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It’s Time To Unmask the Republican Agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With the arrival of Labor Day, and the end of Vacation Time for Americans lucky enough to have jobs with benefits, the options for changing the dynamics of the midterm elections have gradually but steadily narrowed. Significant external events could still happen, but probably won’t; the economy is not going to turn around between now and November 2.

Moreover, the opportunity to engineer a basic sea change in public opinion on the Obama’s administration’s agenda is probably past for the time being. Much as the White House’s earlier efforts to convince people that the economy would be far worse without unpopular market interventions made sense, basic judgments have been made by most persuadable voters. The same is true of health reform; the legislation’s beneficial effects will have to kick in before it gets a fresh trial in the court of public opinion.

What Democrats can — and must — do more of during the shank of the campaign season is to challenge Republicans to disclose their own agenda for the country, and draw greater attention to the extremist logic of where Republican positions of current events would lead. The vast majority of all Democratic messaging in the next two months needs to relentlessly focus on this single topic.

This is obviously easier in the case of Republican nominees such as Rand Paul, Sharron Angle and Joe Miller, who have called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare. But many other Republicans are demanding elimination of any federal role in education, energy environmental protection or agriculture, and virtually the entire party is reflexively opposing regulations on a wide variety of subjects where corporate misbehavior has had a devastating effect on the national interest and middle-class Americans individually.

Even those GOP elected officials and candidates who have been careful to avoid such specific positions have accepted the party-wide argument that federal budget deficits must be immediately reduced if not eliminated even as new tax cuts for high-earners and corporations are provided and the defense budget is protected (if not expanded via a new war with Iran which many Republicans have been agitating in favor of for years now). By any sort of math, the Republican agenda means massive steps to eliminate regulations and scale back Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other basic safety net programs.

Democrats need to hammer away at these general and particular implications of the GOP agenda every day and in every competitive contest across the country.

To those who argue that this sort of “negative” campaigning would represent an effort to change the subject from its own performance in office, Democrats must respond: it’s Republicans who are trying to change the subject from a proper comparison of the agendas of the two parties and of individual candidates.

There’s no secret about the Democratic agenda; the administration and the congressional Democratic leadership have been trying to implement it since January of 2009, against the active obstruction of the GOP, which is using every dilatory tactic, most notably unprecedented threats to use Senate filibusters. The public deserves to know exactly what the Republican Party will propose if it gains control of either House of Congress.

At this late date, such a “negative” campaign by Democrats is the right thing to do, and perhaps the only thing to do that can simultaneously persuade swing voters and motivate a high turnout by Democrats. Waiting until next year to force the hand of Republicans is both irresponsible and politically feckless.

However much conservatives and many elements of the media insist the midterm elections are a “referendum” on the Obama administration or this or that Democratic initiative, they cannot wish away the fact that every contest that will decide control of Congress or of state and local governments involves a choice between a Democrat and a Republican–with the former being held strictly responsible for every discontent with the status quo, and the latter free to demagogue and make vague or wild promises without immediate consequences.

Every Democrat reading these words knows the sort of extremist and very unpopular agenda the GOP will be forced to advance in the very near future by its own loose rhetoric, the logic of its conflicting promises, and the growing radicalism of its cadre of politicians. It’s time to tell the country about it right now.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist

Photo credit: Tim Bradshaw’s photostream

Why You Shouldn’t Read This Park 51 Post

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I am about to make a circular argument, one that will eventually prove why I shouldn’t be writing this post in the first place.  But bear with me — to explain why shouldn’t apply fingers to keyboard, I must.

Today, we’ve learned that Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen have both come out strongly against the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn Korans to commemorate 9/11.  You might remember this Center from such books as “Islam is of the Devil” (seriously) and such blog postings as “Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran” (for a hilarious read, check out author “Fran’s” assault on apostrophes).

Both Petraeus and Rasmussen have correctly surmised that burning a Koran would “inflame public opinion and incite violence… [and] put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan” (Petraeus), and stand “strong in contradiction with all of the values we… fight for” (Rasmussen).  Indeed, the damage may have already been done, as ABCNews reports the “Death to America” chants are echoing in Kabul. (The latest indications are that the church is “praying” about this Koran burning business, and appeals to a Deity might provide sufficient political cover to back off. UPDATE: Whoops, maybe not.  Looks like they’re going to burn away.)

Amidst all this, a deeper question remains:  Why is General David Petraeus spending time commenting on the actions of a tiny, extremist church in the first place?

Could it possibly be because during the slow August news cycle, cable news wrapped the country in the “debate” about Park51, the “controversial” mosque located somewhere in the vicinity of 9/11’s Ground Zero?  And we’re looking for the next headline-grabbing story on controversial Islam?

Ratings might sky-rocket, but America suffers.  Despite victims’ families’ legitimate discomfort, it somehow seemed obvious that two centuries of protected speech and open practice religion in America should make this a no brainer.

Extensive coverage of Americans’ discomfort with Islam only serves to promote division and delegitimize America’s core values. Consider this New York Times article, which explains polling numbers behind New Yorkers’ suspicion of Park51.  It includes this gem:

“My granddaughter and I were having this conversation and she said stopping them from building is going against the freedom of religion guaranteed by our Constitution,” said Marilyn Fisher, 71, who lives in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I absolutely agree with her except in this case.”

Nevermind that freedoms of speech and worship exist precisely for these hard cases.

But sadly, as the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world exploit division for their own gain, Islam is continually projected in a negative light.  This narrative becomes a perpetual motion machine that promotes (and implicitly endorses) extremist views amongst an increasing percentage of Americans.

The only answer, of course, is to ignore non-issues and deny the whack jobs of Dove World Outreach Center their fifteen minutes of ill-gotten fame.  David Petraeus could stop wasting time on otherwise unnecessary press releases, and I could stop typing.

Will Republicans Take Back the House?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With the traditional Labor Day launch of the general election campaign now past, national political news is being dominated by predictions of large Republican gains.  This mood is being fed by two major new congressional generic ballot surveys utilizing likely voter screens.  A NBC-Wall Street Journal poll gives Republicans a 49-40 advantage among likely voters (registered voters are tied at 43 percent), while an ABC-Washington Post survey shows a 53-40 GOP preference among likely voters (Republicans lead among registered voters 47-45).  This makes last week’s much-debated Gallup poll showing a ten-point GOP lead (among registered voters, actually) look like less of an outlier.

Unsurprisingly, such numbers are also increasing sentiment that Republicans are in a good position to take control of the House.  At a panel during this weekend’s American Political Science Association annual meeting, five prominent political scientists predicted major GOP gains in the House, with three (Emory’s Alan Abramowitz, Dartmouth’s Joe Bafumi and SUNY Buffalo’s James Campbell) projecting a Republican takeover.

More specifically, Politico published an annotated list today of 75 Democratic House districts that are being targeted by the GOP, ranked in three tiers: “must-win” seats, “majority-makers,” and “landslide” districts that could be won if a Republican wave is really high.   There are also 13 districts considered “on the bubble” for being winnable by the GOP.  The “must-win” contests are largely focused on open seats and those represented by freshman and sophomore Democrats in Republican-leaning districts, but the second and especially third tiers include a lot of relatively senior Democrats who’ve survived tough competition before.

The “majority-makers” list of targets, for example, includes Jim Marshall of GA, Baron Hill of IN, Leonard Boswell of IA, John Spratt of SC and Chet Edwards of TX; while the “landslide” list includes Gabby Giffords of AZ, John Salazar of CO, Ike Skelton of MO, Lincoln Davis of TN, Rick Boucher of VA and Rick Larsen of WA.

Aside from the prediction game, a lot of the talk about the midterms continues to focus on an “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans.  This “gap” is often used interchangeably with measurements of likelihood to vote, obscuring the rather important fact that various demographic categories of voters always show a differential likelihood to vote in midterms, with particularly unfortunate consequences for Democrats in 2010.

Most importantly, likelihood to vote in midterms is strongly correlated with age, while support for President Obama is inversely correlated with age (among white voters, at least).  A new Gallup study indicates that young voters are relapsing to their traditional levels of political disengagement in midterms:

The gap between young adults (aged 18 to 29) and older adults (aged 30+) in their election attention levels was relatively narrow in 2008 — 12 percentage points — but the 23-point difference today (42 percent vs. 19 percent) is similar to the average 26-point gap seen in October-November of prior midterms, from 1994 through 2006.

So a lot of the “enthusiasm gap” is sort of baked into the cake, and is not necessarily attributable to anything that’s happened since November of 2008.  That’s cold comfort for Democratic House members in trouble this year, but should point to a much better landscape in 2012.

With the winding-down of the primary season, polling of individual states has wound down a bit, too.  Democrats were alarmed by a set of new Ohio polls from the Columbus Dispatch showing Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman and gubernatorial candidate John Kasich opening up double digit leads over Democrats Lee Fisher and Ted Strickland.  A Magellan poll of New Hampshire Republicans shows long-time front-runner in the Senate race, Kelly Ayotte, holding an uncomfortable lead over a large field, with “true conservative” Ovide Lamontagne not far behind.  The primary in that state is next Tuesday.

Not Just Another Stimulus: Obama Rolls Out Solid Blueprint for Infrastructure Bank

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In his speech in Milwaukee yesterday, President Obama laid out a proposal for smart, responsible investment in economic growth by addressing the urgent need to improve our nation’s infrastructure.  Compared to other economic measures that have been put on the table, economists tell us that infrastructure financing will generate the most bang for our buck, and businesses tell us it will create jobs where we need them now and at the same time produce long-lasting benefits for our economy.  Under normal circumstances, a national infrastructure bank is a great idea. In the current economic environment, it’s a necessity.

The President is sending a strong message this week that his administration’s thinking has moved beyond another round of scattershot stimulus toward a real plan for sustainable growth.  Today’s speech suggests that the mantra for spending has changed from an obsession with injecting federal spending to thinking rationally about actually investing it.  That’s welcome news, and it’s not a moment too soon.

PPI has been hard at work with members of Congress, industry experts, and economists to identify swift and effective steps for fixing our infrastructure problems and putting the country on a better path to economic growth.  We have supported legislation to create a national infrastructure bank, introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who has taken the lead and been the real champion on this issue in Congress.  She will discuss the bill at PPI’s infrastructure policy event on October 1, in conjunction with the annual CG/LA Infrastructure North American Leadership Forum in Washington, DC.

Rep. DeLauro and other elected officials will join Tom Friedman, Leo Hindery, economist Ev Ehrlich, and top business and labor leaders to discuss the best ways to move forward on infrastructure now.  The conference will also examine CG/LA’s list of the top 100 infrastructure projects that represent the most important and urgent priorities for investment.

At a time when deficits are high and every dollar counts, leveraged infrastructure financing is one of the smartest things the federal government can do for the economy.  When compared to other forms of spending and tax cuts, including the costs for the hotly-debated upper end of the Bush tax cuts, infrastructure spending has a stronger impact on the economy. In fact, it blows most other options out of the water.  Even conservatives who argue against further spending right now would agree that if we’re going to spend, this is a much better use of taxpayer dollars than other less productive programs that simply throw money at short-term problems.

The idea behind the infrastructure bank and the new generation of transportation funding programs is to use public financing as seed money to attract private investment, which adds valuable leverage to every taxpayer dollar.  This potent combination of funding will create jobs that can be counted on for years in the hard-hit construction sector and will result in long-term structural benefits for every sector of our economy, including increased productivity and more efficient transportation for our goods and services.

Make no mistake: the proposals the president spoke about today are not the old-school pork projects that many of us think of when we hear anyone in Washington talk about infrastructure.  Creating an infrastructure bank is not about allocating more money for Congress to build “bridges to nowhere.” Instead, it would help bridge the gap that exists between private-sector capital and the financing needs for modernizing the physical backbone of our economy.  By coordinating and prioritizing public needs and relying in part on the market for investment decisions, we can move private capital off the sidelines and into projects that are strategically important for entire regions and for the nation as a whole, not just for one congressman with the right committee assignment.

President Obama and Rep. DeLauro have their work cut out for them in pushing the proposal for an infrastructure bank and smarter transportation investment through Congress, especially in such a charged political atmosphere.  But the President has picked the right fight at least: the fact is that we badly need to upgrade our infrastructure, and it’s an investment that will create steady job growth and generates long-term value for our country.  It will not be an easy fight, but it’s one worth fighting, and President Obama should be commended for taking it up.

Photo credit: Feuilu’s Photostream

PPI Statement on President Obama’s Infrastructure Initiative

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As longtime proponents of a national infrastructure bank, PPI is delighted by President Obama’s new initiative. His proposal to invest $50 billion in new public investment is potentially an economic game-changer. By choosing projects on economic rather than political grounds, an infrastructure bank could leverage hundreds of billions of private investment in new roads, high-speed rail, new generation air traffic control and other long overdue upgrades of our public infrastructure.

The president’s proposal also shifts the policy debate away from makeshift stimulus responses to more structural fixes for our ailing economy. By embarking on a major program of internal national building, we can generate new jobs now, speed innovation and enhance our ability to win in global competition.

There are reports that some progressive centrists may be reluctant to support this proposal at a time of escalating deficits and debt. We take a back seat to no one when it comes to fiscal discipline. But the president’s proposal is not just another short-term stimulus; it’s a long-term investment in expanding the nation’s productive base. With our economy mired in sluggish growth and high unemployment, America needs a vision for economic regeneration, not penny-wise, pound-foolish politics.

We therefore urge pragmatic progressives to give enthusiastic backing to the president’s plan to get America moving again. And we are particularly glad to see its strong emphasis on high-speed rail, the subject of a series of recent PPI reports and analyses.

PRESS CONTACT:
Steven Chlapecka—schlapecka@ppionline.org, T: 202.525.3931

A Political Junkie’s Guide to the Midterm Election

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With the traditional general election bell-ringer of Labor Day on tap Monday, for the most part it’s now past time for observers to speak in some sort of future tense about what the two parties might do to position themselves for November. Yes, eight states do still have pending primaries, along with one that still has a runoff; these contests will significantly affect at least two Senate and three gubernatorial races. Yes, national decisions still have to be made about the precise deployment of financial resources in particular races, and there are a scattering of individual candidate decisions that could fundamentally change the landscape in particular races (most notably in Colorado, where doomed-looking Republican gubernatorial nominee Don Maes is under increasing pressure to drop out). And there are, of course, mistakes that can be made on the campaign trail or in debates that could move lots of voters. In most cases, however, campaigns will focus on getting out their vote, and on appealing to a very narrow range of swing voters. This is likely to revolve around negative attacks on opponents, since that is one of the few devices that can serve as both a motivator and a persuader.

To a considerable extent, much of the “political news” you are going to hear between now and November will have as much to do with the measurement of public opinion as with efforts to influence it. This is when most pollsters switch from surveying registered to “likely” voters (though some, notably Rasmussen and Survey USA, have long been deploying “likely voter” screens, which helps account for the relative strong Republican performance in their polls). And this is when various ambitious models for predicting the results will be announced and refined.

So what should the discriminating political junkie watch for during the next two months?

With respect to the fight for control of the House, the most important objective data point will probably be the final Gallup poll generic ballot results in October. Back in 2002, political scientist Alan Abramowitz developed a very reliable model for predicting the overall results from the final Gallup generic. Just yesterday Pollster.com’s Harry Enten released a refinement of the Abramowitz model, which suggests, for example, that a five-percent GOP advantage among likely voters in the final Gallup generic ballot poll would translate into 225 Republican seats.

Senate races are a much tougher nut to crack, since they are less susceptible to national “waves.” The most influential model, by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, currently shows Democrats likely to sustain a net loss of six to seven seats, but with a 20 percent chance of losing ten or more, which would give Republican control of the upper chamber. Nate’s system also supplies a probability rating for any given Senate seat “flipping” from one party to the other; right now the range is from a 100 percent probability in North Dakota and Arkansas to zero percent probability in eleven states.

And governor’s races are even more complex, since non-national issues (including specific economic and fiscal conditions) can be a major factor, and responsibility for an unpopular status quo doesn’t always reside with Democrats. So given the national dynamics and the slow but steady trend towards partisan polarization in state as well as federal politics, it makes sense to watch closely those “red state” gubernatorial contests where Democratic candidates have managed to remain competitive so far—particularly Texas (Bill White), Florida (Alex Sink) and Georgia (Roy Barnes), three states where a Democratic win could have a major impact on congressional redistricting.

Speaking of redistricting, there are also vicious battles being fought for control of state legislative chambers. I won’t go into this in detail today (it will be the subject of a future Political Memo), but the basic situation is that Republicans have significant advantages in the political landscape while Democrats appear to be a bit better focused and financed.

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that the results of any given election cycle are usually over-emphasized. Obviously the Democratic “wave” elections of 2006 and 2008 have not, at least in the short-term, led to any sort of realignment of our political system. It works both ways, though: after the last redistricting cycle, it was generally thought that Republicans had won a “lock” on control of the House until 2012; it didn’t turn out to be much of a lock. But Democrats do need to relearn the basic problem that our constitutional system builds a conservative bias into the composition of the U.S. Senate, and the balance of control among governorships and state legislatures. But by the same token, Republicans need to understand that the gains they make this year need to be contextualized by their terrible performance in 2006 and 2008, and that the shape of the electorate in the presidential cycle of 2012 will be very different, and much less friendly to the GOP cause.

The Shelf Life of the Tea Party

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Will the Tea Party endure?  If so, for how long?

Steve Clemons writes:

I hope David Frum is right and that the Tea Party movement, which is growing in numbers and ferocity, will hit its limit, experience an Icarus moment, and plunge back into the fringe of American politics where pugnacious, jingoistic, narrow band nationalism has always lurked.

But Clemons is skeptical: “But there is no guarantee of this,” he writes, citing a prominent funder, who frets that “their political loss didn’t teach the Republicans anything; they actually got much worse.”

Kevin Drum chimes in with faith in the political pendulum that always swings back:

I think Frum is right and the mega-funder just needs to have a bit more patience. Parties rarely move to the center immediately after a big defeat. Usually it takes two or three before they finally get the message, and on that metric Republicans aren’t due for a move to the center until sometime after 2012.

Sure, when a party keeps losing, eventually there is a move to shake it up. But the problem is that Republicans are winning doing this, which the wingnuts in the party will surely interpret as a vindication for their, errr, patriotic turn.

But I’m still optimistic that the Tea Party movement does have a limited shelf life. Here’s why:

In all likelihood, at least some of these tea party candidates are going to actually have to govern.  Mike Lee is up by 25  points in Utah; Rand Paul is up almost 10 points in Kentucky; Joe Miller, Marco Rubio, Ken Buck are all leading as well in polls.

And governing is more difficult than campaigning.  Once in Congress, these wild turks won’t be able to deliver on their outrageous promises of ending big government and repealing healthcare. This will likely provoke disillusionment and then infighting among Tea Party types as to whether to find a new breed of “purer” Tea Partiers, or to remain loyal to their existing leaders. Disillusionment and infighting will sap the Tea Party movement of energy.

Additionally, Tea Party legislators, especially in the Senate, will effectively grind the wheels of governance to a halt. Moderate voters, who are now fed up with Democrats for not fixing the economy in two years, will still want somebody to blame for a sluggish economy. And this new batch of Tea Party fanatics, who like to run off their mouths into the deep recesses of ridiculousness, will now find that being accountable makes them the hunted rather than the hunters.

In many ways, this is just the latest step in a decades-long ratcheting up of opposition political rhetoric and promises. The party out of power always promises that there are simple solutions to hard problems that will solve everything, and accuses the party in power of being just too corrupt, incompetent, or whatever to see that. But of course hard problems actually have hard solutions, and the problems now are harder than before and the solutions are even harder. In short: it’s probably a bad time to be overpromising.

Photo credit: adulau’s photo stream

Mideast Peace Talks: So Far, So Good… So What?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

So far so good:  The White House china survived in tact.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian Prince Abdullah, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak managed to dine peaceably last night with President Obama. No plates thrown, no glasses busted in anger.

I wrote a quick piece the other day about what to watch for coming out of these talks.  In terms of body language and messaging, everyone’s saying the right things.

When the talks get down to specifics, what should we look for?  Martin Indyk has a smart column at The Daily Beast where he lays down some critical markers.  The first, as I’ve discussed previously, is the September 26th deadline to lift the moratorium on construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  Getting Netanyahu to give even an inch on his pledge to lift it would be a big win for Abbas.  Finding a face-saving way so Bibi’s right-ist coalition partners don’t abandon him is this trick.

Indyk’s proposal might just do it:

Obama should use the limited time available before the settlement moratorium actually expires at the end of this month to focus the negotiators on defining the western border of the Palestinian state. The Palestinians have already agreed in previous negotiations to the principle that some settlement blocs will be annexed to Israel as part of a land swap. If negotiators can agree on which blocs will be absorbed by Israel, settlement activity can continue there, while the moratorium is extended everywhere else.

I think that’s mostly right.  Defining the final boarders is only one of the elements to a negotiated solution, but resolving a first issue to both parties’ satisfaction would be an incredible confidence-building measure.

The elephant in the room is Jerusalem, whose final status will remain one of the most contentious matters.  A way forward might include negotiating a solution for the rest of the West Bank and the handful of Israeli settlements in suburban Jerusalem, like Gilo, that both sides know will one day be part of Israel.  The city’s political composition can wait for another day.

Photo credit: Cyber Andy’s photostream

The Conservative Politics of Common Purpose

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The primary defeat of incumbent Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (confirmed by her concession yesterday) by former judge Joe Miller is generally being interpreted as another scalp for the Tea Party Movement in its assault on Republicans deemed too moderate on this or that key issue. But there’s something going on a bit deeper, if you consider Alaska’s exceptional dependence on the federal government and the past political track record of politicians like Murkowski’s mentor, the late Ted Stevens, who aligned themselves with the anti-government GOP but emphasized their ability to “bring home the bacon” via appropriations.

In endorsing Miller on behalf of his Senate Conservatives Fund, Jim DeMint emphasized this dimension of Murkowski’s defeat:

Joe Miller’s victory should be a wake-up call to politicians who go to Washington to bring home the bacon. Voters are saying ‘We’re not willing to bankrupt the country to benefit ourselves.’

Now it wouldn’t be quite right to accept DeMint’s characterization of either Alaska voters’ motivations or Miller’s ideology at face value. After all, when Miller calls for abolishing the federal Department of Energy, he’s appealing to the rather selfish desire of Alaskans to control their “own” energy resources–whose value is a lot higher than any federal earmark– regardless of what it means nationally.

But it’s true that there’s an element of collective self-denial among those conservatives who are genuinely willing to take on federal spending categories that are popular among their constituents. Miller is just the latest of a number of Republican Senate candidates this year who have called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare. DeMint himself has long described these programs, along with public education, as having seduced middle-class Americans into socialist ways of thinking.

As Republican pols from Barry Goldwater to George W. Bush can tell you, going after Social Security and Medicare is really bad politics. And they’ve yet to come up with a gimmick, whether it’s “partial privatization” or grandfathering existing beneficiaries, to make major changes in these programs popular (I seriously doubt the very latest gimmick, “voucherizing” Medicare, will do any better once people understand the idea). Indeed, Republicans notably engaged in their own form of “Medagoguery” by attacking health care reform as a threat to Medicare benefits.

Yet the sudden Tea Party-driven return to fiscal hawkery among Republicans, particularly if it’s not accompanied by any willingness to consider tax increases or significant defense spending cuts, will drive the GOP again and again to “entitlement reform.” In Senate candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle and now Joe Miller, we are seeing the return of a paleoconservative perspective in the GOP that embraces the destruction of the New Deal/Great Society era’s most important accomplishments not just as a matter of fiscal necessity but as a moral imperative.

You can respect this point of view even if you abhor its practical implications. But there’s little doubt it represents political folly of potentially massive dimensions. Certainly Democrats owe it to these brave conservatives to take them seriously in their desire to free middle-class seniors from the slavery of Social Security and Medicare, and draw as much attention to it as possible.

Photo credit: Steve Rhodes’ photostream

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist


Obama’s Iraq Speech Splits the Right

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

To thank or not to thank?

Yesterday morning, that’s what we were wondering around the PPI offices — would Obama thank President Bush during his Iraq address that night?  I had a conversation with my colleague Lindsay Lewis, who had just heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mention that Obama was scheduled to call Bush that afternoon.  Might Obama directly thank Bush for adopting “the surge”, which, as the incomplete political narrative goes, was responsible for the decrease in violence in Iraq in 2007?

If he was explicit in his praise, I felt that the left would be apoplectic.  DailyKos and HuffPo headlines would read “The Jerk THANKED Bush”, not “Obama Fulfills Campaign Pledge.”  As polls indicate Democrats’ looming losses this November, that’s not what the administration wants floating around its mysteriously disenchanted base.

Lindsay, ever the astute politico, noted that by paying tribute to Bush, Obama was playing long-ball:  If he were to thank Bush, Obama would be positioning himself as a post-partisan Commander-In-Chief.  In political terms, he’d be positioning himself for the reelect.

Turns out that Lindsay wasn’t far off, and Obama even did him one-better: The president threaded a very fine needle that mollified critics on left and right:

This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush.  It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset.  Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.  As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it.  And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.

Turns out he didn’t go so far as to thank Bush, which keeps the focus on fulfilling his campaign pledge for the progressive base, but he succeeded in praising Bush enough to mute conservative critique and position himself as a post-partisan leader.  If you’ll pardon the phrase, Mission: Accomplished.

The conservative intelligensia are split.  Here Max Boot sounding… magnanimous, even:

I thought that this speech was about as good as we could expect from an opponent of the Iraq war — and better than Obama has done in the past. He even (for the first time?) held out an olive branch to his predecessor. … There was only a brief mention of Afghanistan, but what he said was pretty good.

Here’s Bill Kristol, sharing the love:

I thought his speech was on the whole commendable, and even at times impressive. … Not a bad tribute to the troops, and not a bad statement of the importance and indispensability of hard power. And, on the whole, not a bad speech by the president.

Truth be told, I’m happy to see them giving credit where credit is due.

Of course, every conservative didn’t feel so gooey inside.  Here’s Jennifer Rubin:

Obama is still candidate Obama, never tiring of reminding us that he kept his campaign pledge and ever eager to push aside foreign policy challenges so he can get on with the business of remaking America. All in all, it was what we were promised it would not be — self-serving, disingenuous, ungracious, and unreassuring.

And Jonah Goldberg:

I really disliked it…. If you read this closely, what Obama is saying is that not only do we owe it to the troops to rally around his discredited and partisan economic agenda (“It’s our turn”), not only is it a test of our patriotism to sign on with his environmental and industrial planning schemes, but that doing so “must be our central mission as a people.” I find everything about that offensive.

The point is that on some level, Obama succeeded in presenting himself as a post-partisan Commander-in-Chief.  Of course, anyone can concoct a reason why not to like a speech given by the president of a different political persuasion.  So while Rubin and Goldberg’s reactions are stock and trade, drawing even faint praise from the likes of Bill Kristol is a remarkable and welcome milestone.

An Iraq Milestone?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Many commentators seem puzzled over President Obama’s decision to use an Oval Office speech to mark the “end of combat operations” in Iraq. The reason: Iraq is important to Barack Obama, even if most Americans are nowadays preoccupied with a foundering economy.

Iraq, in fact, may be the reason Obama is President. During the 2008 campaign, the very green Junior Senator from Illinois used his opposition to the war to distinguish himself from more experienced rivals like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. His anti-war credentials allowed him to ride the powerful tide of anti-Bush sentiment among progressives. It also buttressed his claims to be a Washington outsider, the most authentic agent of political change in the race. This appealed to independents.

So it’s little wonder that Obama takes his pledge to end the Iraq war very seriously. He undoubtedly regards it as a matter of keeping faith with his core supporters. At the same time, he was careful not to inflame old passions over the war. On the contrary, he rightly praised U.S. troops for their skill and valor, offered a graceful salute to his predecessor, and urged the country to move on.

In this respect, the speech was probably the most genuinely “post partisan” of his presidency. But it also raised questions about what Obama really thinks about the war.  He noted that U.S. troops, at tremendous sacrifice, toppled one of the world’s worst tyrants and gave Iraq a chance to embrace “a different destiny.” Does that mean he disagrees with the New York Times’ characterization of Iraq as a “tragic, pointless war”? Obama sounded ambiguous on the question of whether it was all worth it, but such reticence probably comes with the job of being President.

Whether the public will regard his declaration as an important milestone is another matter. Violence in Iraq is already down, thanks at least in part to the surge that Obama initially opposed but has since implicitly endorsed by putting the same general, David Petraeus, in charge of a similar escalation in Afghanistan. What’s more, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for the next 16 months, and at least some of them will be fighting al Qaeda insurgents. Truth to tell, the President did little more last night that endorse the timetable set forth in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) the Bush administration negotiated with the Iraqi government.

For Obama, the significance of this moment is that it marks the transition to Iraqi responsibility for security. That’s fine, but America can’t simply wash its hands and walk away at the end of next year. Iraq didn’t ask to be invaded, or to be plunged into the hellish sectarian violence that followed. The United States has incurred an unavoidable moral obligation to help a decent political order emerge in Iraq. If that requires revisiting the SOFA, the administration shouldn’t be inflexible on the point.

In stressing the limits of America’s responsibilities, the President also drew parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States should stay in Afghanistan only as long as it takes to build the capacity of the Afghan government and security forces to defend the country against a vicious Taliban insurgency.

Obama, in fact, seemed to be implicitly advancing a new doctrine of limited U.S. military intervention. The unstated assumption: America probably will be forced to intervene again in failing and fragile states beset by terrorism or communal conflict. But we should make no open-ended commitments to counterinsurgency and national building. But war is seldom so tidy. The United States still has troops in South Korea, 57 years after the war there ended.

In all, it was an often confusing and even contradictory speech, as Fred Kaplan captured well today. It reflected the deep ambivalence of a man who rose to prominence on the strength of his anti-war stance, and now finds himself, as Commander in Chief, responsible for bringing no less than three wars – Iraq, Afghanistan and the fight against al Qaeda – to a successful conclusion.

Photo Credit: Jurveston’s photostream

A Conservative Case for Public Transit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Over at the American Conservative Magazine, William S. Lind makes a powerful conservative case for renewed investment in public transit: “For cities, conservatives’ banner should be read, ‘Bring Back the Streetcars!’”

A couple of points are worth highlighting:

1)    The current car-dependent culture we have now is not a free market outcome. Lind notes that: “it is the produce of almost a century of government intervention in the transportation market.” Highways, according to Lind, only “cover 58 percent of their costs from user fees, including the gasoline tax.”

2)    Public transit is a real driver of economic development or redevelopment. (Lind cites Portland, OR and Kenosha, WI as cities that got a real boost from putting in a streetcar line)

3)    Public transit helps advance energy independence.

4)    And if the first conservative political virtue is prudence, as Russell Kirk advised, “there is nothing prudent about leaving most people immobile should events beyond the pale cut off our oil supply, as happened in 1973 and 1979)

Lind’s piece is one of several in a symposium on transit over at the American Conservative. And in fact, “The American Conservative’s nonprofit parent, The American Ideas Institute, will launch a new center on transportation made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The center will work to showcase conservative arguments for a balanced transportation system in which rail and roads complement one another.”

Lind has also written a book with conservative stalwart Paul Weyrich on this subject: Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation.

This suggests real promise on a left-right consensus on the need for meaningful investments in public transit. Progressives ought to pay attention.

Photo credit: Oran Virincy’s photostream

A Timeline: Obama and Iraq

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Just after President finishes his Oval Office speech on Iraq (and because they’re somewhat linked, Afghanistan), you may flip to your favorite cable news channel and listen to your favorite talking head or two banter on about the war’s history.  In an effort to set the record straight, here’s a quick guide to Barack Obama’s political history with Iraq (and by extension Afghanistan). If you want to a more detailed timeline, you can click over to the Washington Post, which has a good interactive map and timeline.  Or you can check out my new favorite site, LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com.

Here’s the bottom line: After reading just about ever single speech Obama has given on Iraq since 2002, he has been remarkably consistent for a politician.

He opposed the war, while being explicit that he’s comfortable with the use of force. He’s been steadfast that Bush was screwing around in Iraq while he should have been concentrating in Afghanistan.  Hence, this administration’s current policy is the continuation of Obama’s thinking since 2002.

However, once we were in Iraq, he recognized America’s ongoing national security concerns, and sought to promote debate on striking the balance between responsibility, national interest, and political reality.  Even though Obama opposed the surge, it was not because he was uncomfortable with using force, but because he felt that the threat of removing US troops would force political cooperation amongst Iraqi governing stakeholders.

Throughout his campaign, he stayed on message about bringing the war to a “responsible conclusion” a pledge that he has largely fulfilled.

The future is murky: Violence may return to haunt Iraq as the remaining troops are pulled out over the next 17 months (as George Bush’s 2008 SOFA dictates).   While a new Iraq government may request that continued presence of American forces past the 2011 deadline, it is dubious whether Obama, in the midst of a re-election bid, would reopen such a divisive arguement, particularly as America’s national security interests seem long-since secured.

Here are the details:

October 2, 2002: On the eve of a Congressional resolution authorizing President George Bush to use force in Iraq, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama gives a speech at a Chicago Anti-War Rally. Here’s what he said:

Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. …

After September 11th… I supported this [Bush] Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance. … I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.

October 12, 2004: In a debate for his Illinois Senate seat against Republican Alan Keyes, Obama said this of Iraq and Afghanistan:

Ambassador Keyes and I agree on one thing, and that is that the War on Terror has to be

vigorously fought. Where we part company is how to fight it, because I think Afghanistan in fact was not a preemptive war, it was a war launched directly against those who were responsible for 9-11. Iraq was a preemptive war based on faulty evidence. … Now, us having gone in there, I do think we now have a deep national security interest in making certain that Iraq is stable. If is it not stable, not only are we going to have a humanitarian crisis, I think we are also going to have a huge national security problem on our ands—because, ironically, it has become a hotbed of terrorists consequence, in part, of our incursion there.

November 22, 2005. A speech to the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations found Obama in a reflective mood:

What do we want to accomplish now that we are in Iraq, and what is possible to accomplish? What kind of actions can we take to ensure not only a safe and stable Iraq, but that will also preserve our capacity to rebuild Afghanistan, isolate and apprehend terrorist cells, preserve our long-term military readiness, and devote the resources needed to shore up our homeland security?

[G]iven the enormous stakes in Iraq, I believe that those of us who are involved in shaping our national security policies should do what we believe is right, not merely what is politically expedient….

But I believe that, having waged a war that has unleashed daily carnage and uncertainty in Iraq, we have to manage our exit in a responsible way – with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis.

January 9, 2006. Senator Obama podcast following a trip to Baghdad:

I think the general view was that we were in such a delicate situation right now and that there was so little institutional capacity on the part of the Iraqi government, that a full military withdrawal at this point would probably result in significant civil war and potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths.

January 25, 2006. Senator Obama podcast following post-trip meeting with George Bush:

I believe we need to bring our troops home as quickly as possible, but to do so in a way that does not precipitate all out civil war in Iraq.

On February 22, 2006, the Sumarra Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, is bombed.  The repercussions set off a spiral of increasing violence that many call a civil war.

June 26, 2006. Senator Obama floor statement on Iraq following proposed Kerry Amendment, which called for redeployment of troops.

I would like nothing more than to support the Kerry Amendment; to bring our brave troops home on a date certain, and spare the American people more pain, suffering and sorrow.

But having visited Iraq, I’m also acutely aware that a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, driven by Congressional edict rather than the realities on the ground, will not undo the mistakes made by this Administration. It could compound them. …

I do not believe that setting a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops is the best approach to achieving, in a methodical and responsible way, the three basic goals that should drive our Iraq policy: that is, 1) stabilizing Iraq and giving the factions within Iraq the space they need to forge a political settlement; 2) containing and ultimately defeating the insurgency in Iraq; and 3) bringing our troops safely home.

…

I cannot support the Kerry Amendment. Instead, I am a cosponsor of the Levin amendment, which gives us the best opportunity to find this balance between our need to begin a phase-down and our need to help stabilize Iraq.

November 20, 2006. Senator Obama speaks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:

The President should announce to the Iraqi people that our policy will include a gradual and substantial reduction in U.S. forces. He should then work with our military commanders to map out the best plan for such a redeployment and determine precise levels and dates. … [I]t could be suspended if at any point U.S. commanders believe that a further reduction would put American troops in danger. …

Perhaps most importantly, some of these troops could be redeployed to Afghanistan, where our lack of focus and commitment of resources has led to an increasing deterioration of the security situation there. The President’s decision to go to war in Iraq has had disastrous consequences for Afghanistan — we have seen a fierce Taliban offensive, a spike in terrorist attacks, and a narcotrafficking problem spiral out of control.

In January 2007, George Bush announced ‘the Surge’, which Obama opposed. Here’s a video. Here’s what Obama said in a Senate floor statement:

The President’s decision to move forward with this escalation anyway, despite all evidence and military advice to the contrary, is the terrible consequence of the decision to give him the broad, open-ended authority to wage this war back in 2002…. I cannot in good conscience support this escalation.

Drawing down our troops in Iraq will put pressure on Iraqis to arrive at the political settlement that is needed and allow us to redeploy additional troops in Afghanistan… My plan would couple this phased redeployment with an enhanced effort to train Iraqi security forces.

As the political narrative tells us, “the surge worked.” However, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that three events really helped bring about a de-escalation in violence in Iraq in 2007.  Read this op-ed from my friend Michael Kleinman on what really happened.

October 2, 2007.  Early in the presidential campaign, Senator Obama pledges to bring home troops within 16 months of taking office:

I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately. I will remove one or two brigades a month and get all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months. The only troops I will keep in Iraq will perform the limited missions of protecting our diplomats and carrying out targeted strikes on Al Qaeda.

November 19, 2008. Just before leaving office, George Bush negotiates a new Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government.  It calls for US troops to be out of Iraq’s cities and towns by mid-2009 and out of the country altogether by the end of 2011.  Read the entire SOFA here.  Obama’s campaign timeline is more-or-less in line with Bush’s.

January 21, 2009. Just after taking office, President Obama met with military leaders and asked them to draw up a 16-month withdrawal plan from Iraq.

February 27, 2009. Obama tells Congressional leaders that he’s planning to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by August 2010. That 19 month time-line is three longer than his campaign promise. He tells lawmakers that he intends to keep 35,000-50,000 non-combat forces in the country for training and force protection. Some Democratic Congressional members are upset at the remaining forces; Generals Petraeus and Odierno are supportive.

August 25, 2010: U.S. troop numbers in Iraq at 49,700.

photo credit: U.S. Army’s photostream

No surprises in West Virginia, Louisiana

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s another Tuesday, and believe it or not, there are no primaries today!  In fact, the next batch is not until September 14, when seven states plus the District of Columbia hold elections. This last weekend, however, voters in Louisiana and West Virginia went to the polls, with the latter limited to a special primary election for the late Robert Byrd’s Senate seat.

West Virginia

The results there were absolutely predictable, with Gov. Joe Manchin easily defeating Ken Hechler for the Democratic nod, and 2008 Senate nominee Jon Raese winning the Republican bid without breaking a sweat. Given the refusal of better-known Republicans to take on Manchin, this contest will provide a pretty good test of generic Republican strength in a red-leaning state where Democrats have often dominated in non-presidential elections.

Louisiana

Down in Louisiana, Senate candidates David Vitter (R) and Charlie Melancon (D) had no trouble winning their parties’ nominations.  The more interesting contests were in two House districts.  In LA-02, where Republican Joseph Cao pulled off a flukey win in 2008 over the ethically challenged Bill Jefferson, state legislator Cedric Richmond (D), the well-financed consensus choice of both New Orleans and DC Democrats, easily won the nomination without a runoff.  This is perhaps the ripest Democratic House pickup opportunity in the nation.  But in Melancon’s LA-03, a ripe Republican pickup opportunity, front-runner Jeff Landry, the beneficiary of Tea Party and Christian Right support, just missed avoiding a October 2 runoff against former state House Speaker Hunt Downer.   The runoff will boost the uphill candidacy of Democrat Ravi Sangisetty, who has raised an impressive amount of money.

Alaska

A major bit of unfinished business from last Tuesday’s primaries continued to play out today, as Alaska election officials began to count an estimated 25,000 absentee and provisional ballots.  Former judge Joe Miller leads incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski by 1,668 votes, and things are getting nasty already with Miller’s campaign alleging vote-tampering by the Murkowski camp.  On another front, the Alaska Libertarian Party decided against offering Murkowski its ballot line should she lose the GOP nomination. That means her options would be limited to a write-in campaign.  The Libertarian action was bad news for Democratic candidate Scott McAdams, though the hatefulness surrounding the Republican contest could still give him an opening.

Delaware

Meanwhile, in Delaware (another Senate contest where Republicans were assumed to have a virtual lock, in Delaware) the Tea Party Express has decided to weigh in on behalf of insurgent conservative candidate Christine O’Donnell, who is challenging Republican party establishment favorite Mike Castle.

New Hampshire

Similarly, in NH, longtime front-running Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte may be getting nervous following the endorsement of hard-core conservative Ovide Lamontagne by the New Hampshire (nee Manchester) Union-Leader.  Democrat Paul Hodes has been leading Lamontagne in general election test heats.

North Carolina

And in yet another race often conceded to Republicans, a new PPP survey of NC (which involved a switchover by PPP from registered to likely voters) shows Democrat Elaine Marshall hanging in there against Sen. Richard Burr, trailing him 43-38 with 6% going to a Libertarian candidate.

It would be ironic, to say the least, if Democratic control of the Senate were saved by unlikely wins in Alaska, Delaware or North Carolina (not to mention Nevada, where most observers wrote off Harry Reid as early as last year), but it’s always possible.

Florida

And then there’s Florida, where two recent polls have shown Charlie Crist falling significantly behind Marco Rubio.  Crist is in real danger of losing crucial Democratic support to freshly minted nominee Kendrick Meek, and is dancing around the key question of which party he would caucus with in the Senate.

The game of predicting Republican House gains is intensifying as we get closer to November, and this week GOPers are buzzing over a new Gallup House generic ballot poll that shows them with a ten point lead, the largest in Gallup history.  But as Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal explains, this result looks a lot like a random-noise outlier, particularly when you compare it to the most recent Newsweek generic ballot poll, which shows the two parties tied.  The overall trendlines, though, are hardly comforting for Democrats.

Will There Be a Volcker Plan for Corporate Tax Cuts?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On Friday, I wrote about the current tax debate and bemoaned the failure of Democrats to frame the debate around a more comprehensive proposal of their own, instead of just talking about a more progressive version of the Bush tax cuts.  I concluded with my hope that President Obama will put forward his own package of broad, pro-growth reforms to do just that.

Since then, I have two new reasons for hope.  First, on Friday afternoon, the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB), chaired by Paul Volcker, released a long-overdue report on tax reform proposals.  Then President Obama said Monday that his team is weighing “additional measures” to move the economy forward, including both extension of expiring middle-class tax and “further tax cuts to encourage businesses to put their capital to work creating jobs here in the United States.”  It’s not much to go on, but the president promised more details on these “proposals” in the days and weeks to come.

Looking at these two news items together, are there clues in Friday’s report to what the president is planning?  I think there are.  Obama chose to mention putting capital to work, which is different than simply talking about putting people to work.  I may be reading too much into it (no doubt from watching too much Rubicon), but the president’s choice of words suggests to me that he’s chosen an approach based on corporate income tax incentives, rather than alternatives like payroll tax cuts to boost hiring, which has been suggested at various times by Republicans, Democrats, and both.  The corporate income approach would be consistent with options laid out in Friday’s report, which looks at the benefits of corporate income tax changes and treatment of corporate operations overseas, but not other things like payroll taxes.

Drawing from the Volcker report, my best guess is that the president will offer a version of the “direct expensing” proposal to increase incentives for new capital investments.  This seems like an easy choice to argue for stimulating demand and getting larger companies to spend the piles of cash they have been sitting on.  Plus, it complements the administration’s push for more spending on clean energy and infrastructure, two priorities the president also mentioned as additional measures on Monday.  But the real reason I’m betting on this option is the marketing.  As the report acknowledges, “direct expensing” is really just “accelerated depreciation” on steroids (insert Rocket joke of the day here), but giving it a new-ish name and taking it to a new extreme are classic markings of the kind of political repackaging Obama may be looking for right now.

If I let my optimism go completely unchecked, I can also interpret the president’s sentence fragment as a sign he’s prepared for more comprehensive corporate tax reform—taking up the Volcker report’s suggestions for simplifying and reducing corporate rates to incentivize investment and make U.S. more globally competitive.  Unlikely, I admit.  However, the tone and substance of the report’s chapters on corporate tax reform do match up in many respects to Obama’s rhetoric about “putting capital to work” and “creating jobs here in the United States.”  These two themes apply to the predicted benefits of several options included in the report:

  • Lowering marginal corporate rates will make the U.S. more competitive relative to other developed nations (we currently have the second-highest rates in the world).
  • Lowering marginal rates will encourage companies to build and create jobs by reducing the cost of capital for new investment and reduces incentives to use debt to finance new spending.
  • Lost revenues from lower rates can be replaced by eliminating special-interest giveaways and tax expenditures, thereby broadening the base and reducing inefficient corporate subsidies and market distortions.
  • With lower marginal rates, it will be possible to deal rationally with income earned by U.S. corporations overseas and end the nonsense system of deferring repatriation of earnings to avoid high U.S. taxes.

It’s true that the report is short on specifics and estimates for the options it proposes, which has prompted some to pronounce the entire effort as a missed opportunity for comprehensive reform.  This might be true in the sense that Volcker and company could have provided more concrete numbers for the president to cite (and for his opponents to distort), and they could have taken it upon themselves to go beyond what was asked of them and issue an urgent call to arms for overhauling the tax code.  They didn’t do either of those things.  Instead, they did what they were supposed to do: create an opportunity for the president to do whatever he wants with the report.

That the report is so non-committal doesn’t mean it isn’t part of a larger strategy. Thinking big without announcing a hard-and-fast position to fight for from the outset is classic Obama (can I already say “classic” less than two years into his presidency?).  When Obama actually comes out in favor of specific proposals, he frequently likes to do it without telegraphing his punch, as was the case the last time he teamed up with Paul Volcker to endorse the Volcker Rule.  So it’s conceivable that both the timing and the tone of this report were planned by the White House—not simply to be ignored and forgotten in the doldrums of August, but to quietly lay the groundwork to support a new tax proposal this fall.

Most of the smart money has been on Congress waiting until after the elections to take up taxes, but that leaves a lot of time for Republicans to pound away at the president’s tax plan and for Democrats to splinter off from the administration’s plan to partially extend the Bush tax cuts.  The next couple weeks seems like as good a time as any for Obama to stand with Paul Volcker in a Rose Garden press conference to announce the new “Volcker Plan” for corporate tax cuts.  You heard it here first.

“Middle East Week” Kicks Off: Five Things To Watch

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For the first time in 20 months, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will sit down face-to-face in Washington, DC this week.  Building on a year and a half of shuttle diplomacy “proximity talks” shepherded by George Mitchell, the White House’s Middle East envoy, this Wednesday, September 1, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will sit down with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.

There’s been broad skepticism surrounding these talks from the get-go.  Is the Obama administration convening talks for domestic political reasons within a pessimistic geo-political environment, or because there’s actual hope?  My colleague Will Marshall shares this decidedly luke-warm take: “It’s not hard to find grounds for pessimism,” he wrote last week here on ProgressiveFix.

Here are five ways to gauge the talks’ success:

1. Cameras
Yes, yes – a press conference ain’t much, what with the security and happiness of millions hanging in the balance.  But the mere act of holding a joint press conference with Obama stewarding Abbas and Netanyahu at least indicates the talks were a basis for some extraordinarily cautious optimism.  It would be better than, say, both leaders departing quietly in the middle of the night without so much as a word to the cameras.  But this is the low bar the situation demands.

2. Netanyahu’s position on the settlement moratorium
Upon assuming office last year, Netayahu issued a 10-month moratorium on construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  It is due to expire in late September, and Netanyahu, facing right-wing pressure from within his coalition, has said that building will resume.

It is, of course, a shame that the extraordinarily complex issue of where and how to build settlements has been reduced to the binary choice of “build” or “don’t build”.  That’s why if Netanyahu, fresh off a positive meeting with Obama in July, can finesse his pledge to continue construction (and please his political base) while giving ground somewhere to show the Palestinians and Obama that he’s serious, we might be in business.

3. Level of buy-in from the “moderate” Middle Eastern countries
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are planning to attend.  While neither leader is on extraordinarily solid political ground domestically (which may turn out to be the understatement of the year for Mubarak, who faces a potentially explosive election), Abbas needs their blessing to create breathing room with the likes of the nay-sayers in the Arab League, who are already predicting failure but remain generally supportive of talks because of Obama’s “sincerity”.  Building an Arab coalition around a deal is key, so watch whether they are vocally supportive of the meeting and what message they take back home.

4. A statement from Hillary Clinton
She’ll be the direct intermediary between the two, so watch her closely. Everything from body-language to expression to the actual words out of her mouth will be important.  If there’s a tense, negative air surrounding the talks, the Secretary might just literally embody them.

5. Reactions in Israeli press
Israel has a wide selection of English language publications of good quality, like the Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz.  Keep an eye on what they’re saying – for them, the talks will be issue #1 this week and will no doubt maintain lively commentary.  They were the bell-weather for Netanyahu’s trip to DC in July, and the Israeli English-language press deemed that trip a success, which became the de facto public narrative.

Photo credit: Templar 1307’s photo stream