issue: Politics

No Bargain for America

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When you compromise between a good plan and a bad plan, you get a less good plan. So what happens when you compromise between two bad plans? We’re about to find out, as Congress this week tries to reconcile deficit reduction blueprints drawn up by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

That we are now reduced to fallback House and Senate plans reflects the failure of the nation’s political leadership to rise to the occasion and forge a common approach to solving the debt crisis. The road not taken was the “grand bargain” every serious budget analyst knows is substantively and politically the only way to control the debt: trade more tax revenues for cuts in the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending.

While it’s easy to assume a posture of Olympian detachment and blame both sides for this failure of nerve, it’s wrong. The grand bargain died because House Republicans killed it. As President Obama said last night, it was scuttled by the “ideological rigidity” of Tea Party extremists who are trying to dictate national fiscal policy from the House.

Recall that once it was clear that he couldn’t get a “clean” bill raising the debt limit, President Obama decided to go big. That is, he pushed for a big debt reduction package of about $4 trillion, which would stabilize and eventually shrink the debt. That idea appealed to Boehner – at first. But when House GOP freshmen made it clear they would not vote to raise revenues, insisting that our massive deficits be closed through spending cuts alone, Boehner walked away from talks with the President. Not once, but twice.

As liberals ruefully noted, the House GOP’s zero-concessions approach contrasted sharply with Obama’s pliability. First he agreed to trillions of dollars of domestic spending cuts. Then he offered to put entitlements on the table, causing conniptions among the “progressives” who oppose long-overdue reforms in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The president endorsed a package that was 3-1 spending cuts over tax revenues. Rather than accept it and declare victory, conservatives demanded unconditional surrender.

So now the spotlight shifts to the Boehner and Reid plans. Both fall well short of what the country needs. Boehner calls for a two-step process: First, Congress would cap discretionary spending and raise the debt ceiling by $1 trillion. Then a bicameral joint committee would be charged with finding another $1.8 trillion in savings. If Congress approves the second tranche, it would lift the debt ceiling by the same amount.

The Reid bill also would cut discretionary spending by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade, and leave revenues untouched. But as critics have rightly pointed out, that includes savings from military spending as the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down that have been accounted for already. Nonetheless, Obama last night endorsed Reid’s approach, which has the virtue of extending the debt ceiling until after the next presidential election.

Neither bill, of course, offers a permanent solution to the debt crisis. It’s not even clear that each could pass its respective House of Congress. It’s not hard to imagine Tea Party types balking because the bill doesn’t cut deeply enough, or because they’d rather force the country into default as a way of defunding federal programs. Some Senate liberals are chafing over Reid’s approach, which does not ask the rich to pay higher taxes or even close tax loopholes, thereby putting the entire burden of debt reduction on domestic spending.

In the end, as everyone expects, some kind of package will be cobbled together to avoid a prolonged default. But that means the whole sorry spectacle, replete with dogmatic posturing and politically evasive behavior will drag on into next year.

Photo Credit: Robert Reed Daly

Wingnut Watch: Cut, Cap, Balance, Perry.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s a High Noon moment in Wingnut World, as conservatives do everything possible to sabotage a deal to increase the debt limit even as their congressional leaders negotiate behind the scenes to make a deal possible. Yesterday’s near-party-line vote in the House passing the “Cut, Cap, Balance Act” represented a particularly vivid demonstration of conservative inflexibility and its grip on the GOP. CCB would write directly into the U.S. Constitution the Right’s current contention that fiscal problems are always and invariably the result of excessive spending, and that a fixed, ideal ratio between spending and GDP can be deduced and legislated forever.

But extreme as the CCB exercise appeared in terms of all precedent, from the perspective of many conservative activists it was a bit of a wimpy compromise. CCB suggests, after all, there is a circumstance—an insanely remote circumstance, to be sure—under which a debt limit increase would be appropriate. That’s offensive to those who earlier staked out a “just say no” position Indeed, two of the nine votes cast by House Republicans against the CCB bill were from presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul. Bachmann had just, earlier this week, become the ninth candidate (everyone in the race other than heresiarch Jon Huntsman) to sign the Cut-Cap-Balance Pledge, after adding a proviso that she wouldn’t support a debt limit increase until such time as the Affordable Care Act of 2010 is repealed.

With CCB going nowhere in the Senate, Wingnuts now have at least a few days to fulminate against, and then to oppose, any actual debt limit deal. Their public rationales for obstructionism vary: Many conservatives are default denialists, who claim there are actually no significant economic consequences to a failed debt limit increase because the feds will figure out some way to pay creditors until something can be worked out. Others are what might be called bullies-and-bluffers, who are convinced (like some of their brethren on the Left) that the president and congressional Democrats will always and invariably surrender in any negotiations on any subject, making the maximum hard line the appropriate GOP starting point. And still others profess to believe that excessive federal spending—and/or the continued existence of entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—is the real threat to the economy and indeed to human liberty, making some short-term global economic collapse a small price to pay for a return to the lost Eden of the Coolidge Administration.

If, of course, a deal is struck and somehow can be maneuvered through Congress with just enough Republican votes to obtain a majority, we’ll see a whole new cycle of recriminations against this fresh “betrayal” by “RINOs”, complete with threats of primary challenges and maybe even third parties. That any such deal will almost certainly involve unprecedented Democratic concessions on spending, bipartisan “cover” for unpopular changes in entitlements, and abandonment of longstanding Democratic demands for higher taxes on the wealthy, won’t cut much ice on the Right.

As the countdown to default continues in Washington, two very different countdowns are underway on the presidential campaign trail: the countdown to the first real contest of the cycle, the August 13 Iowa GOP Straw Poll, and the countdown to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision on whether to join the race.

Michele Bachmann continues to be the favorite to win the Straw Poll; she’s using her hard-line position on the debt limit to maximum advantage in Iowa, making it the subject of her first statewide TV ad (entitled “Courage”). But she’s now undergoing the first real rough patch of intense media scrutiny and personal questions, some undoubtedly inspired by her opponents. At present, the chattering classes are buzzing over anonymous claims that she is frequently incapacitated by migraine headaches and/or treatment for that condition.

Meanwhile, speculation mounts that Perry will soon jump in (though it’s no more definitive than earlier claims that Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels were minutes away from candidacy). The implications of a Perry run depend on how you see his appeal. Some observers appear to think that the combination of his fundraising prowess, his Tea Party connections, and the “story” of Texas’ economic success, is simply unbeatable. The Hill’s Christian Heinze, for example, who is following the race full-time, appears to think Perry would almost immediately create a one-on-one battle for the nomination with Mitt Romney as Tea Partiers abandoned Bachmann and Cain for the pretty-boy Texan. But as Heinze himself notes, some New Hampshire Tea Folk, however, are raising questions about Perry’s chronic resistance to anti-immigration laws and rhetoric (a smart stance in Texas, but not necessarily elsewhere) and his staunch support for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. And Texans do not quite seem to share the national conservative belief they are living in an economic paradise engineered by Perry’s determination to give corporate executives absolutely everything they want.

If Perry does run—before or after his August 6 prayer-a-thon event in Houston that is certain to raise some questions about his relationship with the theocratic wing of conservative evangelicalism—he will face an immediate strategic decision about whether to plunge into the Iowa Caucus campaign full-bore (it’s already a bit late for a Straw Poll bid by Perry, though the Iowa GOP could put him on the ballot for the event), or instead lay a trap in South Carolina for whoever wins Iowa and New Hampshire (say, Bachmann and Romney). A complicating factor for a Dixiefied strategy by Perry is that wingnut kingmaker Sen. Jim DeMint has successfully convinced most Palmetto State pols and donors to hold off on any candidate endorsements or financial commitments until after Labor Day, apparently to increase his own leverage over the field. Leave it to virulently anti-union South Carolina Republicans to make Labor Day a signpost for keeping rightward ideological pressure on their party and its presidential field.

Photo credit: Bonzo McGrue

Balanced Budget Amendment: A Gimmicky Disaster-in-Waiting.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By refusing to budge on tax revenues, House Republicans have blown a rare chance to get Democrats to swallow trillions of dollars in federal budget cuts. As New York Times columnist David Brooks notes in a shrewd piece today, cuts of such magnitude would have provoked a rancorous split between President Obama and liberals.

Instead, Republicans have opted for ideological purity, including today’s purely symbolic vote on a balanced budget amendment that isn’t going anywhere.

The Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) is an almost perfect embodiment of the contemporary GOP’s gimmicky approach to governing. It’s an uncomplicated way to convey toughness, and it allows conservatives to drape themselves in the mantle of fiscal responsibility without taking the heat for cutting specific programs. And like many of the faux solutions to which Republicans seem fatally attracted, it would damage our economy.

A balanced budget amendment would handcuff the federal government in times of emergency. Backers say the rule could be waived during recessions, but it’s never clear until after when recessions begin and end. Since most of the states have balanced budget mandates, only Washington can spend at the right time and on a scale sufficient to exert counter-cyclical pressure during downturns. The federal government’s superior resources and borrowing capacity make it in effect the nation’s fiscal reserve.

Republicans almost rammed through a BBA in 1997. In the years that followed, the Clinton administration produced balanced budgets the old-fashioned way, by cutting actual programs and making trade-offs among competing public priorities.

Nonetheless, House Republicans once again claim that only a Constitutional amendment can force Congress to do its fiscal duty. Their “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan not only would bar budget deficits, but would also limit federal spending to 18% of economic output, two points below the average of the past several decades.

In other words, it would force massively disruptive cuts in all federal spending, from Medicare and Social Security to the Pentagon and domestic programs. Not even Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the GOP’s uber fiscal hawk, goes this far.

At the same time, the proposed amendment would make it well-nigh impossible to raise taxes, which would require a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate. It’s a formula for rigidity at best and fiscal paralysis at worst. It would invite judicial interference in a power the Constitution unambiguously delegates to Congress – the power of the purse – and narrow the scope of democratic decision-making.

So why are House Republicans pushing it now? Because they know that, in the end, at least some House Republicans will have to vote to raise the debt limit to avert an economic calamity. They want the political cover of having voted for a “permanent” solution to the debt crisis – the BBA – to shield them from the Tea Party’s wrath.

Senate Democrats of course aren’t about to let Republicans write their economic ideology into the nation’s fundamental law, and President Obama has threatened a veto. Still, it’d be a relief if Republicans could find ways to score political points with their base that don’t injure our economy — either by plunging the nation into default, or enshrining archaic notions of a feeble national government in the U.S. Constitution.

Photo Credit: Common Pixels

What Would Reagan Do?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Guess who said this:

“The full consequences of a default – or even the serious prospect of default – by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar.”

President Obama? Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? No, Ronald Reagan, in a 1983 letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. And yet GOP Sen. Jim DeMint called Geithner a “Chicken Little” for issuing an almost identical warning against undermining America’s global creditworthiness.

The Republicans have come a long way since Ronald Reagan occupied the Oval Office – and it’s mostly been downhill.

Winning no prizes for statesmanship is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who argues that it’s more important to prevent the government from raising a penny more in tax revenue than to prevent it from going bankrupt and defaulting on its debts. He says Republicans are making a major concession to Obama just by considering his request to raise the debt ceiling.

The Gipper must be rolling in his grave. Unlike Cantor, he didn’t worry that doing his public duty might be construed as a favor to his political opponents. Reagan was no fan of higher taxes either, but he manned up and raised them when that became necessary to corral federal deficits and restore fiscal responsibility.

What would Reagan do today? The best way to answer that is to look at what he actually did do as president.

First, Reagan pushed through the giant 1981 tax cut that marked America’s first misbegotten experiment with supply side economics. Whatever stimulative effect it may have had was soon overwhelmed by Fed Chairman Paul Volker’s decision to raise interest rates to wring inflation out of the economy. America suffered a harrowing recession in 1982, and federal deficits exploded.

Reagan urged the nation to “stay the course,” but on taxes he changed course. In 1982, when unemployment stood at 10.1 percent, he signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which increased taxes by around one percent of GDP. Irate conservatives blamed the baleful influence of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. A young GOP backbencher and bombthrower, Newt Gingrich, famously called Dole “the tax collector of the welfare state.”

That was something of a bad rap, however, since Reagan ended up raising taxes a total of 11 times during his presidency. Unlike today’s Republicans, he believed fiscal discipline was more important than supply side theories and he understood that compromise is crucial to advancing national interests. In his second term, Reagan embraced a Democratic proposal to broaden the tax base by closing loopholes, and use the savings to bring rates down. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 simplified the tax code by drastically reducing the number of deductions and the number of tax brackets.

Reagan’s determination to not let deficits get too far out of hand continued under his successor. President George H.W. Bush even broke his “read my lips” pledge in 1990, pushing a deficit reduction package that cut spending by $324 billion and raised revenues by $159 billion over five years. Many conservatives were apoplectic, but Bush’s brave move helped put America on track toward the budget surpluses that President Bill Clinton achieved in the late 1990s.

Tea Party Republicans reject that legacy – even though it led to the balanced budget they are now loudly demanding. As conservative NYT columnist David Brooks wrote recently, that’s a radical departure from the party’s tradition of fiscal rectitude as well as the political give and take that makes democratic politics work.

It’s also repudiation of Reagan, the man conservatives love to venerate and name airports after but, as it turns out, honor in the breach when it comes to protecting the full faith and credit of the United States.

Photo Credit: Brett Tatman

Will Cantor Blow Up the Economy?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The stock market plunged over 150 points yesterday as Republicans hardened their stance in debt reduction talks with the White House. The sharp drop was a timely reminder that a political failure to raise the debt ceiling would be a body blow to America’s already weak economy.

The odds of that happening rose sharply this weekend, as House Speaker John Boehner broke off talks with President Obama because he couldn’t get Republicans to support a fiscal “grand bargain” that would include higher tax revenues. That puts Majority Leader Eric Cantor in charge of GOP negotiating strategy — and on the spot.

Unlike Boehner, who seems to have the quaint idea that voters sent him to Washington to solve problems, Cantor is a faithful medium for channeling the Tea Party’s anti-Washington wrath. Rather than prepare his troops for the compromises and shared sacrifices that reducing America’s debts inevitably will entail, he’s been a zealous enforcer of the GOP’s “zero tolerance” dogma on taxes.

Cantor says Republicans can live with closing tax loopholes, as long as every penny saved goes into lowering tax rates. Meanwhile, most House Republicans last week opposed even modest efforts to trim defense spending. So here in essence is Cantor’s generous offer to President Obama and the Democrats: You agree to cut domestic programs by about $2 trillion now and we’ll vote to raise the debt ceiling by that amount. Oh, and after that, we’ll start whacking entitlement programs.

What a deal! Since no self-respecting Democrat would ever bargain on such one-sided terms, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that House Republicans actually want to plunge the nation into a new economic crisis. Do they really hate taxes – or Obama – that much? Or maybe in their revolutionary fervor the Tea Party patriots have unwittingly internalized the old Bolshevic slogan: “the worse, the better.”

In any case, the public seems to be in no mood for a politically manufactured crisis on top of the steady drumbeat of bad economic news — and Obama has deftly set up Republicans to take the political fall.

In contrast to the GOP’s truculence on taxes, the president has appeared reasonable, flexible and persistent in trying to get Republicans to “yes.” To the chagrin of many Democrats, he’s offered to cut $3 in federal spending for every $1 in new revenue. Obama is receptive to the idea of lowering tax rates, as long as some revenue is left over for cutting deficits, and last week even gave liberals chilblains by offering to put entitlement reform on the table.

In slapping away the President’s outstretched hand, the GOP seems to be in the grip of not one but two mass delusions.

The first is that Americans are groaning under crushing tax burdens that would make Pharaoh blush. But the federal tax take has sunk to just 15 percent of GDP, far below its usual average of 19 percent.

The second delusion is that failing to raise the debt ceiling might have no repercussions. On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Jim DeMint accused Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner of trying to scare Republicans into making a bad deal. “Secretary Geithner has been irresponsible. He’s playing Chicken Little here. The fact is that we will pay our debts if it’s the last dollar we have… We’re not going to default.”

DeMint’s logic apparently is this: Since tax revenues are sufficient to cover about 55-60 percent of what Washington spends, there will be plenty of money to pay our foreign creditors. There just won’t be nearly enough to finance federal programs but, who’ll miss them? One possible answer: Social Security recipients, whose checks are supposed to be mailed Aug. 3. Others include military personnel, federal employees, and all those families hoping to visit National Parks during their summer vacation.

When the public backlash comes, Republicans won’t be able to say they weren’t warned. Geithner broke it down clearly this weekend on NBC’s Meet the Press:

“Remember…we have to borrow now 40 cents for every dollar we spend…And every week starting the week of August 2, we have to go out and finance roughly $100 billion in maturing obligations of the government. We make 80 million checks a month to Americans, 55 million people on Social Security benefits, millions more Americans on veterans’ benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, people who supply our troops in combat. Eighty million checks a month.”

The imponderable here is the markets’ reaction to a failure to lift the debt ceiling. There’s a serious risk of higher interest rates, plunging confidence in the dollar and an even deeper freeze on job-creating investments in the U.S. economy.

Eric Cantor imagines the public is behind him on taxes. More likely, he’s saddling up to lead a fiscal reprisal of Picketts’ Charge.

Photo Credit: Republican Conference

Wingnut Watch: Cut, Cap, and Pledge

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As negotiations in Washington over a prospective debt limit increase stall and sputter, the process is not exactly getting an assist from Republican presidential candidates. With the exception of Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, the field is joining conservative activists demanding that congressional GOPers hold the line against any revenue increases as part of a solution in favor of huge domestic spending cuts. Romney hedged his bets by signing onto the notorious “cut, cap and balance” pledge to oppose any debt limit increase not associated with big immediate spending cuts, a permanent limitation of federal spending to a fixed (and much lower) percentage of GDP, and a balanced budget constitutional amendment with a supermajority requirement for tax increases. Using his pledge signature as cover, the former governor is refusing to comment on the specifics of negotiations.

On the other hand Michele Bachmann, who is surging in Iowa and other states, and has earned some grief for (so far) failing to sign the CCB pledge, is settling into her own hard line of unconditionally opposing any debt limit increase (a demand for spending cuts large enough to obviate the need for an increase in the limit). As we get closer to the first real event of the 2012 presidential cycle, the August 13 Iowa State GOP Straw Poll, you can expect the candidates competing there — Bachmann, Pawlenty, Cain and Paul — to get more emphatically shrill about prospects for a “betrayal” of conservatives by their purported leaders in Congress.

While Bachmann has run some risks by declining to sign the CCB pledge (especially the displeasure of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, one of its most prominent sponsors), she wasted no time signing onto a very different and more controversial “pledge”: the “Marriage Vow” released last week by the Iowa social conservative group known as The FAMiLY LEADER. The “Vow” contains a host of radical “pro-family” commitments, from standard right-wing fare like total opposition to same-sex unions to more exotic positions such as tougher divorce laws, opposition to women serving in combat, a national effort to wipe out porn, and natalist support for “robust” child-bearing. The pledge also includes a preamble with even more controversial propositions like the claim that African-Americans under slavery had a stronger family structure than they do today, and arguments that it’s “anti-scientific” to believe there is a genetic basis for homosexuality.

The language about slavery set off a firestorm, which made The FAMiLY LEADER scramble to make revisions, and gave candidates other than Bachmann and Rick Santorum (another early signatory) a good excuse to hold off on taking the “Wedding Vow.” What makes the situation difficult for candidates is that the promulgator of the pledge, FAMiLY LEADER President Bob Vander Plaats, is a big wheel in Iowa GOP politics (he was co-chair of Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa campaign, and leader of the successful 2010 effort to recall three judges who supported the state Supreme Court’s 2009 decision legalizing same-sex marriages). Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty (who hasn’t taken a position on the pledge) particularly lust for Vander Plaats’ support, or at least his neutrality.

Meanwhile, in the broader context of the Iowa battle, a new poll of likely caucus-goers from The Iowa Republican site confirms Michele Bachmann’s surge in the state, showing her moving ahead of Mitt Romney (whom she narrowly trailed in a recent Des Moines Register poll) by a 25 to 21 percent margin. The poll also had some much-needed good news for T-Paw after his sixth-place showing in the Register survey: TIR has him inching past Herman Cain into third place with an anemic but still better-than-usual 9 percent. Moreover, the poll gave both Bachmann and Pawlenty significantly better favorable-unfavorable ratings than Romney, who has a barely visible Iowa campaign and is not competing in the August 13 Straw Poll. Interestingly enough, the survey showed Bachmann doing well with all ideological subgroups in the Iowa GOP (perhaps due to her mostly autobiographical ads and speeches so far)– a situation that greater scrutiny of her platform and background may not sustain. If T-Paw is able to parlay his strong organization into at least a second-place finish in Ames, he has some reason to hope he could catch Bachmann by the time of the Caucuses as voters learn more about her long association with extremist causes.

On a more immediate note, voters in southern California are going to the polls today in a special election to choose a successor to retired Congresswoman Jane Harman. In this solidly Democratic district, the favorite all along has been Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who enjoys strong labor and party-establishment backing. But wealthy Tea Party Republican Craig Huey, who upset Democratic Secretary of State Deborah Bowen for a runoff spot in a May special election primary, has been running surprisingly well against Hahn in polls and in estimates of early voting. Hahn will probably still win. But in a very low-turnout scenario, an upset is possible, which would neutralize the Democratic optimism generated by a victory in a recent special congressional election in New York, and also perhaps indirectly validate a sexually and racially loaded web ad run by “independent” conservatives against Hahn widely viewed as the most offensive political ad since, well, forever.

Photo Credit: TalkMediaNews

The Price of Civility

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Recently released polls have shown disappointing returns for Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, whose percentage of the vote has hovered around 3 percent since early May, and received no noticeable bump from his June 21 campaign announcement. It gets worse: Only 42 percent of Republicans actually know of Huntsman, 20 percent less than the average candidate. Huntsman’s poll number plateau lends credence to Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank’s view that Huntsman and his amicable approach were doomed on arrival.

In a “normal” presidential cycle, Huntsman should be polling much better. His ability to test the president in an area of strength, foreign policy, and position as the most moderate candidate should resonate with a larger niche of independent voters allowed to participate in early state primaries like New Hampshire. But campaigning on the moral high road in this Republican Party nomination contest may come with a hefty toll.

Huntsman is mired support levels similar to Newt Gingrich, and has one of the lowest positive intensity scores (the percent strongly favorable minus the percent strongly unfavorable and gage of the “intensity of support among a candidate’s base of followers.”) out of any of the candidates at (+2). The positive intensity score is critical to building up a volunteer base that is eager to engage in critical but mechanical activities like phone banking, and fight harder at early manpower-driven campaign events like the Iowa caucuses.

Herman Cain, who is more in line with the Republican base, has similar recognition levels but higher intensity numbers at (+25). Cain’s fiery rhetoric, not just his policy, drives his positive intensity levels. Herman Cain‘s bombastic language underscores his policy, and reinforces his firebrand image and in-line with the base policies. Huntsman’s politeness pledge lacks the wherewithal to aggressively contrast his positions with the other contenders, coming off as bland and out-of-synch with the Republicans.

Civil campaigns have a three-part cycle: an initial surplus of press, followed by a drastic drop-off of publicity, ending with the candidate languishing in obscurity. The initial glut of press at the onset of their campaign seems like a severance package to compensate candidates for the minimum attention they receive after the initial surge.

Beyond reducing visibility, limited press also restricts a candidate’s number of defining moments. Each moment carries more weight in marking a candidate’s personality – Huntsman’s desire for civility has labeled him boring and uninteresting. Furthermore, the nature of a campaign drives the media’s branding. Huntsman’s tough-guy motorcycle doesn’t help shake his nice guy image and all the connotations and lack of attention such monikers bring. Here’s a striking figure: only five percent of the 42 percent Republicans that know of Huntsman support his candidacy strongly. That’s just 2 percent of all Republican voters overall. Rising above the fray in politics is an honorable notion, but like most things, it comes with a price.

Huntsman’s low recognition is a by-product of his polite campaign. Conflict drives newspapers and the press drives identification. Politeness just doesn’t generate any headlines.

Photo Credit: David Keller

Will Marshall Tackles Democrat Entitlement Anger in Politico’s Arena

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall today discussed the “Hill Democrats Entitlement Mentality” in a post for Politico’s Arena today.

“House liberals, on the other hand, want to use “protecting Medicare” as a cudgel against GOP opponents in next year’s elections. That’s understandable, but can Democrats really afford to torpedo prospects for long-term debt reduction to win a few marginal House districts?”

Read the full post here.

Wingnut Watch: The Perry Proposition

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The “invisible primary” of Republican presidential candidates positioning themselves to become the Wingnut alternative to Mitt Romney is now getting close to its first major landmarks: the “closing of the field” when Republicans stop fantasizing about late entries who will shake up the race, and the August 13 Iowa State GOP straw poll, which will likely end the campaigns of poorly financed also-rans who can’t show significant grassroots support in Iowa or other early states.

Although bored pundits will probably continue to offer implausible scenarios for late candidacies by Chris Christie or Jeb Bush right on through the autumn, the only real mystery left is whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry will enter the race. He will reportedly decide for or against by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, several campaigns are holding on by a thread, and will probably be liquidated (or reduced to a platform from which the candidates can make free debate appearances to sell their books or keep their names in the public eye) after the straw poll. The most obvious casualty of earlier events is Newt Gingrich, who never had much of a chance at the nomination even before a series of missteps chased off most of his staff. Rick Santorum’s all-abortion all-the-time candidacy hasn’t gone anywhere. Herman Cain is the candidate most likely to be “winnowed” in Ames. His earlier surge in support in the early states has subsided to a considerable extent. More importantly, his languorous campaign pace, reminiscent of 2008 candidate Fred Thompson, has frustrated his staff and supporters; in just the last couple of weeks, he’s lost his top staffers in both New Hampshire and Iowa. In the latter state, that couldn’t come at a worse time, when he needs the organizational heft to convert the cheers he generates with his stock speech into tangible support in the straw poll. His second quarter fundraising numbers, showing he raised just under $2.5 million, didn’t impress anybody.

The candidate most desperately in need of a strong showing in Ames is Tim Pawlenty, who continues to struggle in the polls and whose reported $4.2 million second-quarter haul was even less impressive than Cain’s, given T-Paw’s heavy expenses in Iowa. Anything other than a first or strong second-place finish in the straw poll could kill off Pawlenty entirely, eliminate the prospects of a “consensus” candidate who appeals equally to all of the GOP’s conservative factions, and set up a potentially protracted and divisive nomination contest between Romney and either Michele Bachmann or (if he runs) Rick Perry.

While a Perry candidacy excites a lot of observers, it remains a debatable proposition. Yes, on paper he looks formidable. He’s a candidate equally rooted in the Tea Party Movement and the Christian Right. He’s got a great economic “story” to tell, dubious as his claims really are to have generated Texas’ impressive (if generally low-wage) record of recent job growth. He’s considered good-looking by those who like the rugged Marlboro Man stereotype of masculinity. He’s a good stump speaker who enjoys campaigning far more than governing, and has no moral compunctions about serving up big platters of the rawest red meat. And he’s a proven fundraiser who has the important Republican Governors Association rolodex in his pocket.

On the other hand, a PPP poll just last week showed Perry losing a hypothetical general election contest to Barack Obama in his home state of Texas, performing worse than Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty or Herman Cain (and far worse than Mitt Romney). This sign that Perry has clay of feet in his cowboy boots could be a real problem, particularly if his message depicts him as the economic savior of the Lone Star State, whose residents would normally be expected to toss rose petals in his path to the White House.

Perry also has a timing problem. If he is to compete in the Iowa straw poll, he can’t delay his candidacy much longer. But announcing a campaign this month would significantly undermine the legitimacy of his much-ballyhooed August 6 prayer rally in Houston, dubbed “The Response,” which is reportedly intended to usher in a convergence of Christian Right support for a Perry candidacy. Getting in after Ames could be risky, since it could enable Michele Bachmann to become the celebrity national candidate of precisely the Tea Party/social conservative coalition that Perry would offer to lead.

Meanwhile, Bachmann is riding pretty high at the moment, though her own second-quarter fundraising numbers have yet to be revealed. She has a reputation as a champion fundraiser (she holds the all-time record for cup-rattling in a House race, having pulled in an astonishing $13 million for her 2010 re-election contest). Whatever she’s raised, it is unlikely to match Mitt Romney’s reported haul of just under $20 million. But it will almost certainly be more than her fellow Minnesotan T-Paw, who is presently struggling to get some right-wing leverage from association with their state’s current government shutdown.

All in all, the dynamics of the contest continue to pull the field even further to the Right, as Bachmann, Pawlenty and potentially Perry battle to become the anti-Romney in an atmosphere of partisan meta-conflict in Washington over the debt limit. The two dynamics, moreover, may be reinforcing each other: six candidates, including Romney and T-Paw, have now signed the maximalist “cut, cap and balance pledge” rejecting any debt limit increase that is not accompanied by deep cuts in domestic spending (without revenue measures), a cap on federal spending linked to a low percentage of GDP, and a balanced budget constitutional amendment that includes a super-majority requirement for tax increases. Bachmann is actually trying to outflank cut-cap-balance candidates on the right by demanding repeal of “ObamaCare” as a precondition for a debt limit increase. As we approach white-knuckle time in the shaping of the 2012 field, the GOP is spending little time worrying about how poorly it may be positioning itself to face Barack Obama.

Photo Credit: Iowa Politics

Campaign Finance Reformers Take Heart

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Being a campaign finance reformer in the era of Citizens United is good for job security and bad for one’s sense of personal achievement. Most people agree that the need for sweeping reform is greater than ever and most people fear that it’s harder than ever to achieve. “Most people” are right.

And as if Congress and the President were not a tough enough audience already in the era of billion-dollar, incumbent-dominated campaigns, the Supreme Court, by a narrow majority, has repeatedly shown an activist zeal for striking down hard-won reforms of the past. All that’s not to mention the perpetual partisan deadlock at the onetime election law watchdog, the FEC.

Which is why a week of back-to-back victories for campaign finance reform, however modest, is a step worth marking on the long road back to democratic accountability in America. In a pair of decisions each at the Supreme Court and FEC this week, existing campaign reforms were reaffirmed and a pathway to more comprehensive reforms in future was acknowledged by the Court.

First, in a long-awaited Supreme Court decision Monday on public funding, a 5-4 majority struck down a narrow provision of Arizona’s landmark Clean Elections law, which the “triggered” matching funds to publicly funded candidates who are outspent by private money. On the surface, this may seem like a defeat, but — crucially — the Court’s ruling left unquestioned the constitutionality of public funding writ large. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts, in his majority opinion, even went out of his way to say that nothing in the narrow decision should be interpreted as foreclosing public funding.

While the majority’s wrongheaded decision in the Arizona case will cause some consternation for reformers in that state, simple fixes to the “trigger” provision are available and more than a dozen other public funding states and municipalities remain uneffected. More important still, the push for public funding of federal elections is, if anything, bolstered by the Court’s conclusion that reforms cherishing and expanding free speech–rather than more incremental, limits-based reforms–is the clear path forward.

In a second fortuitous act this week, the Supreme Court denied cert in a separate public funding challenge to Connecticut’s model Citizens Election Program. In refusing to take the case, the high court cemented a lower court ruling upholding the constitutionality of a system that has seen three-quarters of state legislators and all statewide officials elected without accepting a dime in special interest money.

Downtown at the FEC, a pair of decisions on Thursday provided surprising reinforcement to existing campaign finance regulations. First, in a rare unanimous decision, the three Republican and three Democratic Commissioners denied a request from the new crop of partisan “Super PACs” to allow political candidates to raise unlimited funds on behalf of such entities, which are supposed to remain independent of federal candidates under existing law. The decision averted a major new loophole in the McCain-Feingold ban on solicitation of unlimited soft money by candidates and officeholders on behalf of the parties. While far from sufficient to stem the tide of unlimited corporate and union “independent” spending in elections, the decision amounts to an unusual show of respect for existing law from an otherwise impotent and highly partisan FEC.

Finally, in a second rare show of bipartisan agreement, the FEC granted comedian Stephen Colbert a narrow media exemption in response to his high-profile request, allowing him to promote his Super PAC only on his show. The decision averts a major potential loophole, whereby media corporations could have granted unlimited in-kind support to politician-pundits who appear regularly on the air. Instead, it upholds the century-old ban on direct corporate contributions to candidate campaigns.

To be sure, campaign finance reform will not be won through occasional concessions at the Supreme Court or the FEC. It will take a movement of the American people demanding change from Congress. But when those bodies which interpret and enforce the law are respectful of its meaning and intent, and mindful of the directions it must take, patriots and reformers take heart.

Photo Credit: thelastminute

Wingnut Watch: Bachmann’s Alternate Reality

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For true connoisseurs of wingnuttery, there’s no one in elected office quite like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). Sure, her House colleague Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia is more regularly dopey, and her close friend Rep. Steve Smith of Iowa can be as shrill, but day in, day out, Bachmann exhibits the glowing heart of conservative extremism in all its forms with impressive consistency.

To some extent, Bachmann’s notoriety flows from her willingness to say outrageous things for which she has absolutely no evidence. The Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service PolitiFact has rated 23 Bachmann statements since 2009. Sixteen were either “false” or “pants-on-fire” false. Another six were “half-true” or “barely true.” And that’s aside from her frequent gaffes, most notably her relocation of the Revolutionary War sites of Concord and Lexington from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, and her proud claim just yesterday that John Wayne hailed from her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa (as all Iowans are taught from birth, the Duke was from Winterset).

But what makes Bachmann most distinctive isn’t her fast-and-loose connection to facts, but the fierce ideology that underlies her interpretations of reality. She has staked a claim in her presidential candidacy of being the sole “constitutional conservative” in the field. That term is perhaps the mother of all wingnut dog whistles, connoting a belief that liberalism of any sort is not simply in error, but is fundamentally incompatible with the laws and traditions of the Republic, and indeed, with the Divine Plan for the nation and the universe, which requires absolute private property rights, the “right to life” for the unborn, and state recognition of absolute moral values as reflected in a conservative take on Christian scripture. It’s no accident that Bachmann first achieved national fame in 2008 for suggesting an investigation of Members of Congress to determine how many of them were “anti-American.” Instead of just a slip of the tongue, the remark reflects an intense counter-revolutionary conviction that extraordinary action is necessary to save America from the socialists and secularists who are consciously plotting its ruin. She is standing at the crossroads where the overlapping tribes of Tea Party folk and old-fashioned Christian Right activists meet, smiting the godless foe on behalf of the righteous.

Bachmann’s extremism on specific issues reflects her zeal. She made her bones in Minnesota politics fighting for “traditional values” in school curricula and against recognition of same-sex unions. She has long exemplified the determination to purge her party of anyone who doesn’t share a hard-core conservative ideological outlook. She has eagerly embraced any number of peculiar conspiracy theories, including the claim that the Census is intended to give the community-organizing group ACORN sinister access to personal information about its enemies, and the suggestion that AmeriCorps is a Hitler-Youthish indoctrination program. She has flatly attributed the entire housing meltdown and financial crisis to poor and minority people who aren’t “creditworthy.” She was the first member of Congress to make total repeal of “ObamaCare” a precondition for any vote for any fiscal measure. It goes on and on.

Her personal background strongly reinforces her character as perhaps the most extremist politician to run a viable presidential campaign in recent memory. As a student at Oral Roberts University’s law school (subsequently relocated to Virginia to become part of Pat Robertson’s Regent University), one of Bachmann’s mentors was John Eidsmoe, a leading theoretician of neo-theocracy. Back in Minnesota, she and her husband (now the proprietor of a “Christian counseling” facility) founded a charter public school that immediately ran afoul of church-state separation principles. She is almost certainly the first candidate for president to have spent some time on the sidewalks outside abortion clinics protesting their existence.

So why my focus on Bachmann right now? Aside from the rave reviews she received for her performance in the first 2012 Republican presidential candidate debate in New Hampshire on June 13, Bachmann has vaulted to the front of the pack in Iowa, achieving a statistical tie with Mitt Romney in the first Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus-goers. Herman Cain, who had created some early buzz among the Tea Party faithful in Iowa, is now far behind Bachmann (at 10 percent, as opposed to her 22 percent and Romney’s 23 percent), and more importantly, Tim Pawlenty, who has devoted enormous resources to Iowa seeking to become the “conservative alternative to Romney”, is mired in sixth place at six percent.

With Romney having already announced he would not compete at the August 13 Iowa GOP Straw Poll, the table-setter for the Caucuses, Bachmann becomes the odds-on favorite to win that contest, which typically winnows the field. Pawlenty’s organizational strength in the state could still save him, or at least give him a respectable showing in the Straw Poll, but the intensity of Bachmann’s support—in a state where conservatives are uniquely obsessed with Bachmann’s signature issue of opposition to same-sex marriage—will make her formidable.

It’s unclear at this point which phenomenon is more remarkable: Bachmann’s sudden viability, or the fact that the entire field is taking positions similar to hers on the big issues. Either way, it continues to be a very good year to be a wingnut.

 

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

A Republic, If We Can Keep It

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

While ordinary Americans celebrate the start of summer warm weather and bemoan the lack of progress on a deficit reduction deal in Congress, members of Congress themselves have been gearing up for the July 4th recess by engaging in a different sort of Washington pastime–by raising money.

The week before the July 4th recess has seen a flurry of congressional fundraising ahead of the upcoming June 30th quarterly deadline.

The National Republican Congressional Committee reports that GOP House members are scheduled to hold one hundred fundraisers before then with over 50 alone scheduled for this week. House Democrats are not far behind.

Republican fundraisers are bullish about the potential of their party to bring in the money principally because their party is now in the majority in the House. Roll Call cites one GOP fundraiser as saying that he expects incumbents to increase their fundraising by 40% this cycle.

Being out of power in the House has hindered Democratic fundraising. Democratic fundraiser Michael Fraioli told Roll Call, “Things have gotten harder, there is no question about it”. But Fraioli also maintained that fundraising possibilities are rising as expectations of the 2012 electoral prospects of House Democrat improve.

Data on campaign contributions from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics backs up the anecdotal evidence of the advantage that power gives in terms of fundraising.

The graph below shows total contributions to federal elections campaigns for each electoral cycle since 2000.

In each cycle the party that controlled the House raised the most in campaign contributions. The effect was reinforced when that party held other branches of government – for the Republicans during in the 2002, 2004 and 2006 cycles and for the Democrats in 2010.

What’s interesting about this fact is that the extended periods where a party has dominated fundraising coincide with times when the base of the opposition party seems to be most fired up. For example, the Republicans effortlessly out raised Democrats in election cycles when liberals were furious at George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. And in the 2010 cycle – with an ascendant Tea Party scornful of Barack Obama, healthcare reform, and economic stimulus dominating the headlines – Democrats raised $3 for every $2 raised by Republicans.

A logical explanation for this phenomenon can be found when we consider the source of money that actually funds campaigns. In 2008, less than half of one percent of Americans gave donations larger than $200 to federal candidates, yet these larger donations counted for over 80% of the total amount given. Over half of the money contributed came from individuals and PACs operating in just five industries: finance, lawyers and lobbyists, healthcare, communications, and energy and transport.

As the data and anecdotal evidence from fundraisers demonstrates, this giving particularly favors the party in power because it is they who make decisions which directly affect the interests of the groups that dominate giving to political campaigns. What’s more, analysis of the patterns of giving by individual industries and firms finds that most heavy hitters willingly give to both parties with little apparent regard for ideological bent – so long as the candidate and party is in power.

As members of Congress scramble around Washington this week to raise money, before returning to the voters that elected them; let’s mark the birth of American democracy on July 4th, by taking a good hard look at just who it is they’re representing.

Presidential “Speeches”, A Comparison

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Yesterday, Jim Arkedis, director of PPI’s National Security Project, gave his take on what the president should say in his speech on the Afghanistan troop draw down. A day later, let’s compare the two to see if the president’s speech lived up to Arkedis’ hopes.

Key Similarities:

● The president prescribed a troop withdrawal plan that brought home all of the surge troops by the end of 2012 similar to Jim’s desired troop withdrawal.

● Both agreed on the need for a political solution as the pinnacle of a successful resolution to the Afghanistan conflict.

● The two argued the withdrawal in terms of recent U.S. accomplishments on the ground in Afghanistan.

● Finally, both understood that America’s role in Afghanistan is not as a nation builder but as facilitator of democracy.

The Big Differences:

● A grand strategy: the president’s speech was lacking on details on America’s grand strategy for the end of the war.

● The troop numbers: the extra 3,000 troops advocated by Obama and in a slightly shorter timeframe reverberates politically. It allows the president to say during the 2012 that America has returned more than just the surge troops but has made a down payment on returning all of our servicemen home by 2014.

● The president had a larger economic focus, bringing up the concept of nation building at home instead of abroad.

● Frankness on the Afghanistan: the president lightly glazed over the current reality of Afghan-U.S relations.

● The president delved into Pakistan and Libya, which Jim avoided.

● The president did not address the recent U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that aid was not having a tangible impact on Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

 

Both the president and Arkedis agreed on the key concepts of an appropriate Afghanistan withdrawal. The troop totals were nearly similar, and both advocated for a more progressive internationalist view of American foreign policy, emphasizing a support for enabling democracy without verging on nation building.

A majority of the differences were explainable due to the president’s position in global politics. A harsh yet true statement by the president has a larger impact on foreign relations then the statement of a policy analyst. For example in the case of U.S-Afghan government relations, the president has properly taken the high road, while letting his subordinates like U.S Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry handle the harsher rhetoric.

The president’s position as a global leader, however, does not prevent him from being frank with the American people. A recognition by the president that currentaidmechanismsare not working would have been the honest route. Talking foreign aid reformation would not have been politically pretty but could have dovetailed into Obama’s focus on the economy without creating an inverse relationship between domestic on defense spending.

A lack of a grand strategy by the president was also disappointing. In his December 2009 speech, the president outlined specific goals he wished for our troops to meet during the surge. Achieving these goals was the cornerstone of his rationale for the levels of troop withdrawal. A similar approach in the president’s most recent speech would have been logical.

Finally, the conflation of defense and domestic spending implied by the president’s decision to “to focus on nation building here at home” seems a bit troubling. Implying a choice between rebuilding America and securing it is a false choice: The United States should make crucial spending choices on security and domestic programs independent of one another.

 

The overarching themes of the president’s speech could largely have been predicted ahead of time, with news reports needling administration officials for the troop reduction totals. Political realities are understandable, and given the political landscape the president did a reasonable job in addressing the major issues, especially in terms of term withdrawal numbers and America’s role abroad. We hope that specifics on strategy and a clarification of the president’s domestic spending plan are presented in the upcoming round of interviews with administration officials.

Links to the president’s speech and Jim’s “speech”.

 

Wingnut Watch: Pledging Politics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Ideological litmus tests have always been a big feature of Wingnut World, with Americans for Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist’s “pledge” against support for tax increases being the most famous example. Grover’s pledge has been in the news lately, as Senate Republicans grappled with the question of whether a vote to kill tax incentives for ethanol development would run afoul of Norquist, who has always demanded that any revenue-enhancing action to close off a tax loophole be paired with a tax cut to make the action revenue-neutral.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has been trying to secure Republican support for revenue measures (but not tax rate increases) as part of a deficit deal. In a ploy that was almost certainly a direct challenge to Norquist’s authority in the GOP, Sen. Coburn organized a vote to end ethanol subsidies. With some Democratic support, Coburn prevailed in the Senate. But now House Republicans are dragging their feet on any parallel action on ethanol or other corporate tax subsidies, and Norquist is predicting that Coburn is leading the GOP down the road to out-and-out tax increases.

There’s no question that any Grand Bargain on the deficit will involve provisions opposed by Norquist, whether or not they go beyond “tax reform” proposals that offset revenue measures at least in part by rate cuts. What’s unclear is whether violations of Grover’s pledge will form the basis for primary challenges to violators in the future. The last high-profile backslider on the ATR pledge was George H.W. Bush, who in turn had won the 1988 presidential nomination in no small part because Bob Dole refused to sign it.

A different pledge has also made a splash in Republican politics during the last week: a four-plank oath administered to presidential candidates by the hard-core anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List. Candidates pledge:

FIRST, to nominate to the U.S. federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench;

SECOND, to select only pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health & Human Services;

THIRD, to advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions;

FOURTH, advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.

The third and fourth planks reflect the current national anti-choice strategy – the fourth promotes a federal version of the laws recently enacted in several states banning abortions after 20 weeks on “fetal pain” grounds.

Five GOP presidential candidates—Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum—immediately signed the SBA pledge. Four—Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson—pointedly did not. Romney refused to sign on grounds that the planks on funding cutoffs and appointments are too broad. Cain rather strangely argued that no president should be pledged to interfere with congressional prerogatives by “advancing” legislation, while Huntsman seems to object to the whole idea of pledges. Bachmann and Santorum quickly attacked Romney’s failure to sign the pledge as another sign of his lack of commitment to the anti-choice cause, and Santorum has also gone after Huntsman.

Keep in mind that with the exception of minor candidate Gary Johnson, all of the Republican presidential candidates embrace a categorical anti-choice position that favors a total ban on abortions regardless of the stage of pregnancy and removal of the constitutionally-established limit on abortion restrictions involving the health of the pregnant woman. The SBA pledge is interesting in that it requires support for specific strategies to reach the agreed-upon goal of a return to the days when virtually all abortions were illegal, along with restrictions on contraceptive measures that right-to-lifers now consider equivalent to abortion.

Because these distinctions aren’t that well-known outside the ranks of anti-choice activism, it’s unclear what if any impact the SBA Pledge controversy will have on actual voters. But it could matter in those early states, such as Iowa and South Carolina, where social conservatives are especially strong. And the flap will certainly become another talking point in the effort to convince conservatives that Mitt Romney cannot be trusted.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Sibling Rivalry: Federal Power Spat Over Libya

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Ron PaulBoth the House of Representatives and the president have shown that when it comes to Libya, NATO is not the only organization susceptible to bouts of friendly fire. A bipartisan group of ten congressmen sued the president last Wednesday for not getting Congressional approval of military action in Libya, thereby violating the War Powers Act of 1973. President Obama responded by stating that combat in Libya does not equate to the full-blown “hostilities” described in the Act, while simultaneously disregarding dissenting legal opinions from both the Pentagon and the Justice Department.

Amid this mess, there’s only one thing that’s clear: expending energy to politically posture over the War Powers Act has real costs. While both sides remained tied up in this debate, they remain distracted from our national objectives: ousting Qaddafi and, more broadly, keeping public discourse focused on the economy.

Three main issues undermine the Republican’s charge that the Obama administration has exceeded its brief vis-à-vis the War Powers Act: historical enforceability issues, potential political consequences, and questionable motives.

First, enforcement of the War Powers Act is difficult at best. While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan received congressional support, presidential indifference to the Act has been historically bipartisan. Reagan invaded Grenada in technical violation of the War Powers Act, while Clinton received no congressional backing for the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. Furthermore even legal precedent stands against enforcement: A District of Columbia appellate judge dismissed a similar War Powers Act suit over Clinton’s action in Kosovo, stating that the case was “nonjusticiable.”

Second, efforts like the one suggested by Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to defund military action in Libya are futile at best. Despite their desire to protect the sanctity of legislative branch, representatives are wary of pitting a stand against executive overreach against depictions of betraying American troops abroad mid-mission.

And third, even leader Boehner’s position on the issue has been tumultuous at best. In 1999, Boehner called the War Powers Act “constitutionally-suspect” during the U.S intervention in the Balkans, noting that its implementation was “likely to tie the hands of future presidents.” The Majority Leader’s tenuous position on the issue only gives the impression that the congressman is willing to weaken future presidents in order to maximize present political gains.

At the same time though, it’s not clear why the president doesn’t want to play War Powers ball on Libya. In an editorial Friday, the Washington Post echoed similar sentiments on the president’s stance, while declaring that the vague nature of the law did not excuse Obama from abiding by it.

It seems as if the president is calculating that the cost-benefit analysis the situation favors a patient approach. By waiting for political realities to douse the House’s passions, the president avoids entangling himself in jurisdictional politics. While it is wise that the president is conserving the power of the bully pulpit for economic issues, political realities make a quick solution to the War Powers controversy a presidential necessity. A protracted War Powers debate plays right into the desired Republican narrative: the administration is distracted from focusing on jobs and the economy.

Furthermore, such a swift conclusion would not even require a public retraction of the president’s position. A bipartisan group in the Senate led by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) is working on a non-binding resolution to validate the effort in Libya.

So as not to compromise his current position, the president should actively support the Senate resolution to ensure its passing. Even though the resolution would likely die on arrival in the House, and therefore not satisfy the legal requirements of the War Powers Act, it provides the president with the opportunity of congressional approval for military action in Libya. Senate approval gives Obama the platform to transcend bickering over constitutional authority and argue that America needs to focus on getting rid of our deficit and Qaddafi. The McCain-Kerry resolution provides the congressional support necessary to move beyond the War Powers Act spat and onto more pressing priorities.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Bundling Appointments

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the era of big money, it is a familiar, if sobering, theme in modern presidential administrations, and this week President Obama’s administration took its turn.

A report published this week by iWatch news details the nearly 200 “bundlers” – individuals who channel multiple large donations to particular candidates – from President Obama’s 2008 campaign who have subsequently taken jobs or advisory roles in the administration.

True to form, White House spokesman Eric Shultz was quick to defend administration’s appointments, saying that all appointees “have sterling academic credentials, years of public services and private sector experience that make them eminently qualified for the positions to which they were appointed”.

This is probably true, in part because many of those qualities are what put people in the position to persuade wealthy friends and contacts to make donations in the first place. However, the appointment of bundlers today, as in past administrations, is worrisome for three reasons. Such appointments create at least the appearance that selections for executive positions may not be made on merit alone, undermining the public’s confidence in government, and they also narrow the pool of talent that the administration is likely to call upon in making their final decisions.

Regardless of the number of highly talented and qualified individuals Mr. Schultz can point out, public doubt inevitably lingers over such appointments. The American Foreign Service Association has long raised concerns over the appointment of campaign bundlers as ambassadors. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and career diplomat Thomas Pickering told iWatch that individuals could “multiply their chances” of gaining diplomatic appointments by bundling campaign contributions. Indeed, 24 ambassadors appointed by the administration were campaign bundlers, fourteen of whom raised at least $500,000 for the campaign.

It is likely that the prevalence of bundlers in certain positions within the administration narrows the field from which candidates are drawn. Half of those raising $200,000 or more for President Obama in 2008 were appointed to some role in the administration and fully 80 percent of those raising $500,000 or more were appointed. It is hard to imagine that when comparing candidates of similar qualification, the total money raised does not play a role, not least because the president will rely on many of these same people to raise money for his next campaign.

A narrower pool of talent means that those who supported former opponents are less likely to be appointed. Bi-partisan appointments, beyond a few high-profile exceptions, are even less likely. This is damaging at a time when finding common ground is vital to making major decisions about the challenges we face.

There is a solution to this problem; voluntary public funding of elections would allow candidates to raise money from a much broader base of public support. That would enable presidents to make appointments of talented and loyal supporters without doubts being raised as to whether such appointments were traded for financial support. It would also encourage the administration to cast its net more widely for the best available talent, perhaps even across the aisle. Such a change has to be good for our democracy.

Photo Credit: Enoch Lai