issue: Politics

Tucson: The Real Questions

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Flag half mast at Captiol BuilidingWe at the Progressive Policy Institute are heartsick over the senseless attack Saturday on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, which also claimed the lives of six people, including a nine-year-old girl. Not only is Gabby our friend, she is an exemplar of the pragmatic progressivism that puts country before party. We pray for her recovery, and grieve for those who will never recover from this rampage.

As if this tragedy were not bad enough, some pundits have disgraced themselves by using it to score political points and vindicate their own particular stance. Thus, we’re instructed that the attack was the inevitable result of a climate of hostility created by the Tea Party, or Sarah Palin, or anti-immigration groups in Arizona. There’s no evidence this is true, but political gladiators apparently can’t help themselves.

We’ve refrained from commenting until now in hopes of learning more about the motives of the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. It seems he suffers from severe mental illness and was animated by his own inner demons, rather than “vitriol” in the atmosphere.

The political finger-pointing that has followed the shooting has been revolting. It’s not too early to start grappling with some of the pertinent questions this tragedy actually raises. We’d highlight three:

First, why is it so easy for mentally disturbed individuals to acquire handguns in America? The gun shop that sold Loughner the semiautomatic Glock 19 apparently ran a background check. Why did it not turn up the fact that the suspect had recently been booted out of a community college for his erratic and disruptive behavior? Surely more rigorous checks are in order and don’t impair the basic right to gun ownership.

And what public purpose is served by allowing citizens to buy high-capacity magazines more suitable for war than self-protection? These were covered under the ban on assault weapons passed on President Clinton’s watch, which has since lapsed. Let’s hope the Tucson massacre gives fresh impetus to reinstating it.

Second, how is it that we lack the legal tools to protect society against mentally unhinged people before they turn violent? Most people with serious mental illnesses aren’t dangerous, but some are. Obviously, it’s hard to assess such risks in advance. Yet when people exhibit patterns of bizarre and sociopathic behavior—as did the alleged suspect in Tucson, and as did Seung-Hui Cho, who massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007—they shouldn’t simply be left to their own devices. Determining how to preempt the potential for violence entails careful thought and a delicate calibration of individual rights and public safety. But society can’t simply look the other way as individuals descend into madness.

Third, will this attack result in erecting new barriers between elected representatives and the people? As we have seen since 9/11, elected officials have a tendency to overreact to acts of violence, erecting elaborate and costly security shields against low-probability threats. Will Members of Congress now demand bodyguards and be enveloped in security cocoons like the president? If the Tucson attack leads to a greater separation between politicians and those who elect them, it will have dealt a serious blow to our democracy.

GOP: Soft on Deficits

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Republicans talk a big game on fiscal responsibility, but don’t be fooled: Today’s GOP has gone soft on budget deficits.

This week, the new House Republican majority adopted rules aimed at controlling federal spending. That sounds innocuous enough, but a closer look at the new rules reveals the GOP’s dirty little secret: in their zeal to shrink government, Republicans have abandoned the fight to rein in America’s colossal budget deficits.

This year’s budget deficit is estimated to be about $1.7 trillion. Since House leaders adamantly oppose raising taxes to close the gap, they’d have to make epic cuts in federal spending to make even a modest dent in the deficit. But as the New York Times reports, House GOP leaders already are backing off on their promise to hack $100 billion out of domestic spending this fiscal year. Since Republicans also insist on sparing the Pentagon from the budget ax, that would have meant draconic cuts (between 20-30 percent) in domestic programs. Sobered GOP leaders are now talking about cuts in the $50 billion range.

The assertion, pressed most vehemently by Tea Party types, that fiscal discipline can be restored through spending cuts alone is new. Don’t forget that Ronald Reagan signed 11 major tax increases, including a whopper in 1988 amounting to 2.7 percent of GDP. George Bush’s willingness to boost taxes (and tax rates) as part of his 1990 budget helped set America on a course toward the budget surpluses later achieved on Bill Clinton’s watch.

By taking taxes off the table, House Republicans are breaking with their own party’s tradition of fiscal rectitude and saying, in effect, they don’t care all that much about deficits. Evidently for this curious new breed of fiscal “conservative,” expanding deficits in pursuit of smaller government is no vice.

That’s the real message sent by the new rules adopted Wednesday, which seem calculated to lock in big deficits as far as the eye can see.

Most egregious, for example, is their new “cutgo” rule. Under existing “paygo” rules, new tax cuts or spending increases must be offset with tax increases and/or spending cuts. Cutgo, in contrast, says that any new spending must be paid for by spending cuts alone, and it exempts tax cuts from offsets altogether. In other words, their costs will simply be added to the deficit. Similarly, changes in budget reconciliation rules would bar spending increases in reconciliation bills, but allow tax cuts. Expect a torrent of new tax expenditures as lawmakers realize that they can dole out new tax favors without the bother of paying for them.

If the new rules weaken fiscal discipline on the tax side of the federal budget, they do strengthen constrains on the spending side. For instance, they include a new point of order on legislation which increases mandatory spending at any point over the next four decades. They also repeal the “Gephardt Rule,” which allows lawmakers to avoid an on-the-record vote on raising the debt ceiling. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget offers a detailed analysis of the new rules here.

Unfortunately, the overall effect of the new rules will be to undermine serious bipartisan negotiations to curb both federal spending and deficits. The Senate, still controlled by Democrats, rightly will reject the GOP’s transparent bid to force all the painful decisions to the spending side of the ledger. As a slew of recent reports by bipartisan fiscal commissions show, there’s no plausible way to deal with America’s debt explosion without closing tax loopholes and raising revenues. Even such hard-core fiscal conservatives as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) recognize the need to curb tax expenditures. By impeding the search for common ground on fiscal issues, the House GOP’s anti-tax fundamentalism only delays the inevitable day of reckoning, at enormous cost to the nation’s economic prospects and the public’s confidence in their government’s ability to solve urgent problems.

Unlike House Republicans, U.S. voters think deficits matter, not just the level of public spending. This is especially true of independents, who abandoned Democrats in last year’s midterm elections in part because of their spendthrift ways. To these voters, big deficits connote not just chronic mismanagement of the nation’s economy, but also a breakdown in political responsibility in Washington.

That’s why President Obama and progressives should miss no opportunity to drive home the reality that Republicans are now the party of big deficits.

We Need a North Star For Foreign Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Pole StarIn early December, President Obama described his role as a “north star out there” for Americans – a distant guide that keeps us moving towards a goal.  He was defending his tax and benefit compromise with Republican leaders, explaining that compromise was in the country’s DNA and that there was value in moving in generally the right direction.

But is Obama – or anyone in the last two decades – a “north star” for American foreign policy?  Keep in mind that when I say “north star”, I’m talking about the core, uniquely American values that guide our leaders, no matter which party they come from.

Furthermore, the “north star” is not to be confused with the “Kennan Prize” of American diplomacy, named for renowned diplomat George Kennan upon coining the guiding term “containment” for America’s strategic approach to the Soviet Union. No one since the legendary Kennan has distilled an overarching American strategy into such a perfectly appropriate, yet bumper-sticker length slogan.

At foreign policy conference after foreign policy conference, academics compete for the next iteration of mythical award, which is all shined up to be ceremoniously bestowed in columns and blog posts upon the author the next great foreign policy framework.

With the “north star” concept, I’m looking more broadly.  Kennan won his prize for a specific strategy vis-a-vis a specific enemy.  I’m asking for America’s guiding foreign policy values to be articulated. Not tactics or strategies, but values.  And not liberal, progressive, or conservative ones, but American values.

I suppose the void exists because world events since the end of the Cold War have been scatter shot.  Consider major American foreign policy events since 1991:

— Disintegration of the Soviet Union
— Bill Clinton’s “Peace Dividend”
— September 11th
— Afghanistan
— The Global War on Terror (run a muck)
— Iraq
— Diffusion of power to individual actors
— Iran and North Korea struggling to get the bomb
— Lack of progress in Israeli/Palestinian peace
— The rise of democratic world powers (Brazil, India)
— … and autocratic ones (China)

It’s hardly a cohesive group, hardly lending itself to a coherent “north star.” In retrospect, it’s really tough to argue that the Iraq war comes from the same value set as a strategy to resolve the Israel/Palestinian divide.  But as America emerges from its pressing, all-consuming commitments (Iraq, Afghanistan), the Obama administration will have time to breathe, reassess, and think about America’s guiding north star in foreign policy.

Lacking one is a big concern to us here at PPI, and you’ll be hearing more from us on it in the near future.

Let’s Not Just Read the Constitution, Let’s Actually Discuss It

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Sign calling for people to get the "Constitution Flu"So the House Republicans are planning to get their “People’s House” show started today by reading the U.S. Constitution, that beloved document that our constitutional law scholar of a President has apparently never bothered to read.

It’s clearly symbolic politics, but I’m not as offended as, say the New York Times editorial board (who thinks it is a “a presumptuous and self-righteous act”). Rather, I think that Akhil Reed Amar, author of “America’s Constitution: A Biography” and a constitutional scholar at Yale Law School, has it right. Here’s what he told the Washington Post:

I like the Constitution. Heck, I’ll do them one better. Why only once in January? Why not once every week?… My disagreement is when we actually read the Constitution as a whole, it doesn’t say what the tea party folks think it says.

For the political right and especially the Tea Party, the Constitution has taken on the quality of a holy relic, a symbol of a lost America. Running through the Tea Party mythology is a familiar decline-of-civilization narrative: America was once an Edenic land of limited government and personal liberty. If only we return to the lost and mythic Constitution, we can somehow Restore America. (Apparently, in this story, Congress has been recklessly passing un-Constitutional laws without anybody even noticing – not even the most conservative Supreme Court in 80 years!)

Tea Partiers certainly have great fun making oh-so-clever signs about America’s lost constitution, but I’d happily wager that very few of them could actually pass a basic test about what’s in the hallowed document. (Surveys show that Americans actually know depressingly little about what’s in their beloved Constitution: a remarkable 49 percent think the President has the power to suspend the Constitution; 60 percent think the President can appoint judges without Senate approval; three-quarters of Americans think the Constitution guarantees a high school education; 45 percent of Americans’ think the Communist manifesto slogan  “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” is found in the U.S. Constitution. Could you name all Ten Amendments?)

 

In this respect, a public conversation about what’s actually in the Constitution would probably be a very good thing. We might actually have a more informed discussion, and, as E.J. Dionne and Greg Sargent have both noted, there’s plenty of reason for progressives to welcome it. Rather than ceding it as a symbol of the political right, maybe we should discuss the broad federal powers to provide for the “general Welfare of the United States” (Article I, Section 8).

Unfortunately, the great likelihood is that the Constitution will be read once, and then promptly tossed aside. The words, in all their 18th Century legalese, will go in one ear and out the other (assuming anybody is actually listening). And life will pretty much be the same as it was before, with the majority of Tea Partiers still desperately clinging to their particular fantasy of what they believe the Constitution represents without any better understanding of what is actually says.

Will American Exceptionalism Sink or Save Obama?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A new Gallup poll out today highlights what could be a problem for Obama going into the 2012 election: his reluctance to embrace the idea of American exceptionalism. According to Gallup’s polling, 37 percent of Americans think that Obama does not “believe the U.S. has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world.”

What makes this dangerous is that Americans are in an anxious and insecure mood these days, seeing a world that doesn’t match up with well-established ideas about American greatness. These days, only 20 percent of Americans think the U.S. has the strongest economy in the world, and only 34 percent expect Americans can get back to the world’s top economy in 20 years. Only 17 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States.

And yet, despite all this, 80 percent of Americans still believe in America’s unique greatness (73 percent of Democrats, 91 percent of Republicans).

There is a gap here. American exceptionalism is part of our cultural heritage and our self-identification. We believe there is something special about our nation. And yet, something is preventing us from achieving its full potential. What is it? No wonder there is so much anxiety.

The danger is the temptation to blame the wrong causes. The political right has increasingly spinning stories about how big government socialism is preventing America from achieving its true potential, and as The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty recently noted in an excellent round up of Republican talking points on American exceptionalism, “Lately, it seems to be on the lips of just about every Republican who is giving any thought to running for president in 2012.

But there is an upside here too, which is that despite the mood of declinism, there is also an underlying base of confidence and resilience. Americans still feel there is something special about this country, which means that there is a narrative on which to build a story of recovery. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. This is America. We can roll up our sleeves and make hard choices about our future.

Can Obama be the leader to make that pivot? The good news is that 58 percent of Americans actually do think Obama believes in America’s unique greatness, including 57 percent of Independents (not surprisingly, 83 percent of Dems but only 34 percent of Republicans think Obama believes this). Not overwhelming, but at least it’s a start.

As numerous commentators have noted, the Obama administration is in need of an overarching narrative, a coherent and aspirational story about the direction in which he is trying to take the country. Recently, Obama tried out a “Sputnik Moment” trope in speeches. Though it hasn’t exactly caught on (and the analogy is a bit strained), at least he’s thinking along the right lines.

American greatness does not have to be a jingoistic tool of the political right. It can also be a powerful set of ideas for Obama to tap into about how we don’t have to give into declinism, and how we can indeed get America moving again because always have. We’re special like that.

Impossible DREAM

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

One of Barack Obama’s finest moments as President came this past September, when he gave a speech to Congress urging passage of the health-care reform bill. In his closing remarks, he invoked the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and what Kennedy had written him in his final days: “What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” Those words resonated with Obama. “I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days – the character of our country,” he told the country that night.

Those same words stung with relevance this weekend. Overshadowed by the landmark repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, a triumph of social justice, was a cruel development: the Senate’s failure to break the filibuster to pass the DREAM Act.

In more reasonable days, the DREAM Act would have been a no-brainer. The bill paves a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents. It would grant permanent residency status to immigrants who graduate from high school and complete two years of college or enter the military. In other words, young men and women who were brought to this country illegally by their parents and who want to become more integrated into our national life would finally have the means to do so.

A good idea, and a bipartisan one too – once upon a time. In a period when our nation is in need of as many achievers and public servants it can get its arms around, the DREAM Act would seem to be a common-sense solution (not to mention a deficit-reducing one, as the CBO found).

But those days are long gone, and when the vote to cut off debate came up, the bill fell five short of 60. Three Republicans – Richard Lugar, Robert Bennett, and Lisa Murkowski – voted in favor, while five Democrats voted against. All this despite the fact that, under the Obama administration, there have been a record number of deportations, part of Obama’s effort to convince the bill’s holdouts that it is serious on enforcement.

The pictures that accompanied the news stories of the bill’s failure tell the story. Here’s how the Times described the scene:

Young Hispanic men and women filled the spectator galleries of the Senate, many of them wearing graduation caps and tassels in a symbol of their support for the bill. They held hands in a prayerful gesture as the clerk called the roll and many looked stricken as its defeat was announced.

For those young men and women, the rebuff must have been unfathomable: Why would this country explicitly deny them the opportunity to be productive contributors to our national life?

That the DREAM Act has gone from a pragmatic, consensus policy to anathema to not just the right but even a handful of Democrats speaks to a worrisome shift in American attitudes. Demagoguery is rife; resentments are in full bloom. It makes one worry for the character of our country.

The Obstacles to Political Compromise

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

There has been much discussion this week about the launch of No Labels and its significant attempt to organize the cause of political moderation and bipartisan compromise into a movement. I hope it can succeed. But it’s worth reflecting for a moment on why political compromise is so hard these days, and the obstacles that a movement organized around the ideal of a politics of consent and compromise faces.

Fortunately, two very smart political thinkers have done exactly this, so my work in this post is merely to summarize and reflect a little on their arguments. In an important essay entitled “Mindsets of Political Compromise,” UPenn President Amy Gutmann and Harvard Political Theorist Dennis Thompson have made what strikes me as a very trenchant observation: “The more that campaigning comes to dominate governing in democratic politics, the harder compromise becomes.”

Gutmann and Thompson argue that there are two primary mindsets in politics – the uncompromising mindset and the compromising mindset.

The uncompromising mindset is the mindset of the modern campaign, which “favors candidates who stand firmly on their positions.” Campaigning is about drawing distinctions and standing by principles, as it should be – voters need to know the difference between two candidates to make informed choices.

In their conception, this uncompromising mindset has two elements: “principled tenacity” and “mutual mistrust.”

Principled tenacity rests on the widely-held assumption that politicians are supposed to have deeply felt moral principles about things like justice and fairness, and they should fight for them.

Mutual mistrust is “the assumption that their opponents are motivated mainly by a desire to defeat them and their principles.” This often leads to cynicism, and they write that, “as the cynicism about the motives of politicians spreads to cynicism about the process of compromising, particular compromises become easier to resist and condemn.”

By contrast, the compromising mindset is, or should be, the mindset of governing, since reaching solutions in a democracy almost always requires some compromise. It also has two elements: “principled prudence” and “mutual respect.”

Principled prudence is based on “a pragmatic recognition that compromise is usually necessary in a democracy to accomplish anything of significance.” But it does not amount to mere compromise for the sake of compromise. It is instead a recognition that even if politics is the art of the possible, sometimes nothing is still better than the possible.

Mutual respect is the assumption that even if political opponents may have ulterior motives, they are still capable of negotiating in good faith and for what they think is right and that they are acting on principle.

Gutmann and Thompson argue that, “to reach a compromise, then, politicians must adjust their wills as much as their reason. They must be able to turn a will to oppose into a will to cooperate. That involves a psychological shift as much as a policy change.” They spend some time in their piece tracing out procedural ways to encourage politicians to find more common ground and be more aware of these different mindsets. (You can read the whole piece here)

Thinking in terms of mindsets is useful, because it clarifies just how different and incompatible the processes of getting elected and governing have become.

What this implies is that political moderates who care about the process of governing ought to get serious about campaign reform issues. Put simply, the permanent campaign increasingly means a permanent incapacity of elected officials to collectively solve problems. If politicians are spending all their time bashing their opponents and standing firm for their principles, that doesn’t leave them much time to get together to actually govern productively.

A slight caveat to this is that, as I’ve written in a recent op-ed for Politico, there is good evidence that the voting public, especially Democrats and Independents, do like compromise. And voters may even reward politicians who are seen as being willing to compromise. However, I’m aware of few campaigns organized around the claim of “I’m willing to compromise with the opposing party, so elect me.” All campaigns, as far as I can tell, are about drawing distinctions, even if it’s between a candidate who’s post-partisan and independent and one who’s not.

Photo Credit: Trebor Sholtz

Centrists of the World Unite

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s no secret that the relentless polarization of U.S. politics has left independent and moderate voters  politically homeless.  Today a bipartisan group of activists gathers in New York to launch an effort to organize this “radical center” and amplify its voice in Washington.

No Labels is the brainchild of Nancy Jacobson, a veteran Democratic activist and fundraiser.  Its organizers include veteran political players from both parties of a distinctly pragmatic, non-doctrinaire bent (including yours truly).  It aims to build an online network of Americans – imagine a MoveOn.Org for centrists  –  who are fed up with the nation’s dysfunctional political system and want to do something about it.

That won’t be easy, even with the Internet’s unprecedented power to connect virtual communities of like-minded people.  Unlike arch partisans and members of interest groups, independents and moderates are notoriously hard to mobilize.  They tend not to be impelled by passionate causes, and to pay fleeting attention to politics. “Liberals and conservatives have passion. Moderates and independents have lives,” observes political analyst Charlie Cook.

There’s little doubt, however, that voters across the broad middle of the spectrum have become more disenchanted with politics and government.  The midterm election was the third straight in which independents turned against the incumbent party.  This restiveness is grounded in what they see as the Obama administration’s failure to deliver, especially on the economy.  Independents don’t trust the Republicans either, and the last thing these voters want is an intensification of Washington’s zero-sum political game.

According to a new poll by Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor, only 10 percent of Independents welcome the GOP victory as a chance to roll back government.  Seventy percent said neither party’s agenda alone can solve the nation’s problems. This poll confirms other recent surveys in finding a strong preference for bipartisan cooperation over confrontation.  President Obama’s tax-cut deal shows he’s gotten the message.

So No Labels is tapping into something real.  On the other hand, it so far is defined more by what it’s against – incivility, partisan cant, rigid dogmas, special interest power and, above all, a paralysis in government’s ability to solve problems – than by what it’s for.  Can a movement organized by political insiders tap and channel grassroots anger in politically consequential ways?  Can it coalesce behind a positive agenda for governing?  We’ll see.

For now, it’s enough to say that the problems No Labels seeks to solve are real enough.  There’s no question we need a broad civic mobilization to bring intense pressure to bear on our political leaders to work together to solve the nation’s problems.  Independents and moderates may be an inchoate political force, but there are lots of them. If No Labels can get even a fraction of them mobilized for political action, Washington will take notice.

Tip-Toeing Around The Elephant: US Mitigation And The COP

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The US was in an awkward position in Cancun. The administration clearly wanted to show leadership, but it was hamstrung by an inability to deliver legislation with any tangible commitments. Since that seemed unlikely to change in the new Congress, US negotiators were left playing defense on the key issue — mitigation.

This makes movement in other areas (such as finance and forests) difficult, though that is in part due to US insistence on parallel, rather than serial, treatment of issues.

The result was sometimes bizarre diplomatic displays by the US, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s address — essentially a remedial crash course in climate science. Secretary Chu did not take questions, one suspects because it would have been difficult to answer the obvious one — how does the US plan to meet the President’s 17%-cuts-by-2020 goal articulated last year?

Difficult, but not impossible. The awkward position in which US officials find themselves and the effects it has on US credibility and capability make the administration’s continued avoidance of serious public discussion of EPA carbon regulations puzzling. Research at RFF and elsewhere indicates that EPA regulations, either on the books already or likely in the near future, could achieve emissions reductions in the range of the President’s goal.

I’ve studied these regulations over the past year or so, and I’ve been repeatedly surprised by their likely impact. Vehicle fuel economy standards, new power plant permitting rules, and whatever the agency decides to do for existing sources can each make a significant emissions impact. Perhaps more interestingly, coming EPA regulations ostensibly aimed at other pollutants could have a big impact on carbon by pushing a substantial portion of coal plants into retirement, and replacing them with cleaner technology.

It’s not clear why the US administration and negotiators didn’t trumpeting these regulations as evidence of a commitment to cut emissions. It’s possible it is felt that a regulatory approach won’t be understood or taken seriously by the international community, but EPA regulations are far from the only complex issue on the table (just ask your local climate finance expert for a quick summary if you suspect otherwise). And other countries are undoubtedly familiar with a regulatory approach — for many it is their preferred domestic environmental policy. One thing is certain, though — the best way to ensure that the international community (and the American public) fails to understand or appreciate the EPA’s capabilities is for the administration and its negotiators to refuse to explain them.

Another possibility is that the administration worries that hyping EPA’s powers is politically dangerous. The agency is more effective, this argument goes, if it can operate quietly and at its own pace. To put it more directly, to speak of regulation is to destroy it — perhaps because Congress would respond by seeking to cripple the agency.

But the President should not forget that his party still controls the Senate, and that he still wields the veto pen. Even if the President resigned himself to giving up EPA powers (or delaying them) as part of a compromise, it would surely be in his interest to say how strong these powers are, thus increasing their value in any bargain.

Moreover, the argument that regulatory emissions cuts are more effective if kept quiet contradicts what is arguably the central dogma of US foreign climate policy — that US action is valuable not for its small contribution to global goals, but as a tool for unlocking negotiations and prompting action elsewhere. If US negotiators can’t or won’t talk about the best policy tool the US currently has, they can’t do their jobs. This makes the long term likelihood of a meaningful international agreement much smaller.

EPA regulation is not the first, best option for US climate policy; it is above all likely to be more costly over the long run than a pricing mechanism. But neither this admission, nor the fact that EPA regulations are legally required, are good reasons not to forcefully and frequently articulate their emissions benefits. Perhaps we as a country should be embarrassed that we cannot adopt a national climate policy that more closely approaches the ideal in terms of both costs and benefits. But the administration should not let any embarrassment about what the country cannot currently do prevent them from talking about what it can.

As my colleague Dallas Burtraw pointed out in his talk here this week, US credibility on climate requires that the administration be a lot bolder — not by making new commitments that it lacks the domestic powers to back up, but simply by publicly, loudly, and clearly saying what it can and will do with the tools it already has.

This article is cross-posted at Weathervane

Paradoxes of Actually Governing 101: The Republican Earmark Backtrack

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I must admit, I take a certain delight in watching the Tea Party contingent realize that even they can’t quite stand 100 percent behind their extremist anti-government rhetoric.

Here is Michele Bachmann, backtracking in Politico on the great Republican idea of banning all earmarks: “But we have to address the issue of how are we going to fund transportation projects across the country?” Bachmann, it turns out, wants to make sure that the federal government pays for the Stillwater Bridge, which connects her Minnesota district to Wisconsin over the St. Croix River. Such is the theme of the entire Politico story: Even hard-core Republicans decide they want “member-directed spending” after all, and they are now figuring out how to get around their bold decision to kill earmarks.

The earmark ban was always more political theater than anything else. As I’ve written for Miller-McCune, earmarks only account for about two percent of all discretionary spending, and the money would wind up being spent anyway by normal funding mechanisms, just without the local intelligence of needs that Representatives tend to bring.

But the fun thing to watch now is how, despite all the impassioned railing against wasteful government spending, the Tea Partiers are realizing that their constituents actually like federal involvement in the local economy. And that in order to get re-elected, they are actually going to have to make sure that federal money keeps flowing in.

This should hardly come as a surprise. As I recently noted here at ProgressiveFix, polling shows that while Republican voters bash government in the abstract, they tend to approve of actual government programs in the specific, including spending on transportation. Political scientists have labeled this the symbolic conservatism/operational liberalism divide, since many voters like to say that they are conservative, but when it comes down to actual programs, they actually want government to do stuff.

Presumably, this will not be the last time that the Tea Party brigands find themselves caught up in the paradox of realizing the voting public is not so extreme is the cathartic Washington-bashing of campaign season made them out to be. I look forward to watching the twists and turns.

Why Obama’s Approval Numbers Are About to Creep Up

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Today, the latest Gallup poll finds that 66 percent of Americans support both extending  tax cuts on all Americans for two years and an equal 66 percent support extending unemployment benefits for two years. This is very good news for Obama and a good sign this could be a turning point as he attempts to rebuild his popularity and the bargaining power that comes with it. It’s been a long time since two-thirds of voters approved of anything so high profile that Obama supported.

Moreover, as much as the liberal base may carp about the deal (as they should), the fact that Obama was able to broker a major compromise in and of itself should give him a bounce. As I wrote in a recent Politico op-ed, Americans, especially Democrats and those fickle independents, like leaders who are willing and able to compromise.

Another recent Gallup poll underscores this point. By a 47-27 percent margins, Americans say it is more important for political leaders to compromise to get things done than to stick to their beliefs, with Democrats and Independents much more inclined to prefer compromise. This Gallup poll also found that 36 percent of voters thought Obama was willing to compromise but Republicans were not, whereas 17 percent thought Republicans were the compromisers and Obama was the obstacle. (Another 25 percent thought both sides were willing, and 16 percent thought neither side was willing.)

The President is presumably most interested right now in rebuilding his popularity, which is hovering around 46 percent these days.  Presumably the calculus in the Oval Office is (I think correctly) that the frustrated swing voters who will decide the 2012 elections want a leader who is pragmatic and is not going to hold up their tax cuts or their neighbor’s unemployment benefits for that ubiquitous epithet of a justification, “political purposes.”

By playing the role of compromiser, he’s: a) playing to his political strength, since voters are much more likely to see Obama as the leader in brokering compromise than his Republican counterparts; and b) playing to the voters most likely to vote Democratic in November 2012, since Democrats and Independents genuinely prefer compromise to sticking to strong positions.

Meanwhile, the lefties have every right to complain and they should. To the extent that Obama can have a few public fights with his liberal base, this will probably help him to regain some popularity among swing independent voters, and with it, the political capital that will allow him to start future negotiations with Republicans in a stronger position. Which should ultimately lead to more progressive outcomes.

An Ugly But Necessary Deal on Taxes

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The tax cut deal struck last night by President Obama and Congressional Republicans has only one thing going for it: urgent economic necessity. If unemployment weren’t stuck at just under 10 percent – possibly for years, warns Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke – there would be no way any self-respecting progressive could support it.

How ugly is this deal? Let us count the ways. First, it forces progressives to swallow the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. President Obama’s undoubtedly painful decision to go back (for now) on his oft-repeated promise to repeal them reflects the post-midterm political realities of divided government.

Second, it’s hugely expensive. It could cost as much as $800 billion over the next two years, even as the federal government staggers under the weight of massive deficits. It’s an inauspicious start, to say the least, to the new era of fiscal discipline Republicans promised in the midterm elections. Let’s face it: they’d rather have tax cuts. In any case, the price tag makes you wonder if America can afford this kind of bipartisan compromise.

For all that, the deal was probably inevitable given the economy’s persistent weakness. To have failed to extend the middle class tax cuts would have withdrawn hundreds of billions of purchasing power from the economy at a time when demand is insufficient to trigger new business investment. To have not extended the cuts for upper-income taxpayers would have made it difficult if not impossible for Obama to get what he wanted from Republicans: namely, an extension of unemployment benefits, a payroll tax holiday workers next year, and a renewal of business tax breaks passed this year.

Waiving the payroll tax is an important creative addition, since by lowering labor costs it gives employers a direct incentive to hire workers. Also on the plus side, the deal keeps rates on capital gains and dividends low, and includes “direct expensing” of business investments.

President Obama clearly views his tax provisions as stimulus by the only political means available to him, given public – not just Republican antipathy – to more government spending. He raised the stakes yesterday, warning that America has arrived at another “Sputnik moment” and could be eclipsed by rivals if we can’t turn the economy around. The President also showed little patience with liberal purists who are loudly bewailing, for the umpteenth time, their “betrayal” by a Democratic President.

“Sympathetic as I am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do,” he said. “The American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories.”

It’s true that a majority of the public consistently has opposed tax breaks for the rich. But it’s also true that Americans, and especially the independents who propelled the Republicans’ midterm gains, have even less appetite for political brinkmanship designed to score partisan points. The U.S. left is always up for a bracing round of class warfare, but voters aren’t likely to reward tactics that could result in slowing down the recovery and raising their taxes at the worst possible moment.

The good news is that the extension is only for two years. That gives time for a reconsideration of the whole ungainly package in 2012, by which time the jobless rate presumably will have fallen back to earth. That allows room for a more constructive debate next year over a sweeping tax overhaul designed to promote growth, long-term fiscal stability, and fairness. It also puts the question of how to restore a progressive tax code smack in the middle of the next presidential elections, where it belongs.

Photo credit: David Reber

Extremism In the Name of Liberty

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Those who think it’s some sort of partisan exaggeration to say that today’s Republican Party has moved into some pretty extreme ideological territory should pay some attention to the latest conservative craze in state capitols and even in Washington: the so-called Repeal Amendment.

The bright idea here is to amend the U.S. Constitution–if necessary by a state-called Constitutional Convention–to allow two-thirds of state legislatures to nullify federal legislation whenever it pleases them.

Here’s how Dahlia Lithwick and Jeff Sesol of Slate characterize the Repeal Amendment:

There is so much wrong with the Repeal Amendment that it’s difficult to know how to begin to respond. The Constitution is–by design–a nationalist document. It is also–again by design–an anti-democratic document. American history reveals precisely what happens when state or regional interests are allowed to trump national ones, and the Constitution has been at its best (for example, the Reconstruction Amendments) when it has addressed (and, better yet, resolved) that tension.

They don’t even get into the potential issues with a constitutional convention, which according to some scholars, cannot be limited to any one issue and could fundamentally rewrite the Constitution.

But crazy as it is, the Repeal Amendment is getting some real momentum, not least because it’s been embraced by the number two Republican in the U.S. House, Eric Cantor:

[J]ust two months after the proposal was a twinkle in a Virginia legislator’s eye, the leadership of nine states is showing interest, and the popularity of the amendment’s Web site (they have them nowadays) has “mushroomed.” And this week, completing the proposal’s rapid march from the margins to the mainstream, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah introduced the amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives, pledging to put “an arrow in the quiver of states.” The soon-to-be House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, said this week that “the Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around.” Fawning editorials in the Wall Street Journal and chest-heaving Fox News interviews quickly followed.

This is just nuts, and defenders of the sweet reasonableness of the GOP need to acknowledge it.

This article is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist

Photo credit: Kim Davies

Debt Commission Rises to the Occasion

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama’s deficit commission fell short today of the 14 votes necessary to submit its debt reduction plan to Congress for a vote. Don’t believe for a moment, however, that the commission has failed. On the contrary, co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have forged a bipartisan majority for a plan that creates the basic template for any credible effort to restore fiscal responsibility in Washington.

In pushing back against special interests and partisan polarizers, the commission has done this country a tremendous service. Whatever happens next, its members have been responsive to the solid majority of Americans who say they want to the two parties to work together to solve the nation’s toughest problems.

As the bipartisan duo of Bill Galston and David Frum noted in today’s Washington Post, a post-election Pew poll found that 55 percent of the public wants Republican leaders in Washington to work with President Obama “even if it means disappointing some groups of Republican supporters,” and even more want Obama to do the same. Independents, whose defection from Obama’s winning 2008 coalition largely accounted for the GOP’s midterm sweep, likewise express a strong preference for compromise.

To a surprising degree, that problem-solving spirit seems to have infected the deficit commission, which has been deliberating since February. Republicans don’t come any more conservative than Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, but even he is now drawing fire from anti-tax absolutists for daring to support the commission blueprint. GOP Senators Mike Crapo of Idaho and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also endorsed the plan, while several Members from both parties in the more partisan House oppose the plan.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois broke ranks with liberals to back the plan, while centrist Sen. Max Baucus of Montana raised eyebrows in opposing it. Sounding a parochial note, Baucus criticized the commission’s sensible plan to raise gas taxes by 15 percent, saying it would “paint a big red target on rural America.”

Mostly, however, reactions to the commission’s plan have divided along predictable lines, with support concentrated in the political center and opposition hardening as you move toward either end of the spectrum. Arch-conservatives decry its emphasis on cutting tax expenditures (though we’re proud that the commission adopts a long-standing PPI proposal for a “cut-and-invest” commission to go after these loopholes and subsidies), a trillion dollar drain on federal revenues. Nor are they mollified by its significant cuts in income and corporate tax rates, or its 3-to1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases.

The left, meanwhile, is in full cry over the commission’s allegedly draconian cuts in Social Security benefits. In fact, the proposal boosts the minimum Social Security benefit for low earners, makes the benefit formula more progressive, and very gradually increases the retirement age to 69 (normal) and 64 (early) by 2075. Only today’s toddlers will be affected, and their average life expectancy probably will exceed 80 years by then. The lefty blogosphere and cable shows nonetheless have worked themselves into a hyperbolic lather about President’s Obama mean ole “catfood commission.”

This is ludicrous. The commission’s plan doesn’t actually solve America’s fiscal crisis, it merely slows spending growth to sustainable levels, and stabilizes the national debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2013. That ratio doesn’t return to 40 percent – where it was before the financial crisis hit – for 25 years. In truth the plan does not impose a pitiless austerity on America. Nor would it jeopardize economic recovery, since its changes won’t kick in until unemployment starts falling to normal levels.

Liberals are on firmer ground in arguing that the plan sets unrealistically severe limits on federal spending. It aims to get federal spending down (and revenues up) to 21 percent of GDP by 2035. Whether that is enough to meet the needs of a much grayer America, where over 20 percent of the population will be over 65, is open to doubt.

But the commission’s plan doesn’t have to be perfect. It only has to be plausible, and it more than meets that test. Although it won’t be guaranteed a vote in this Congress, there’s nothing to prevent its supporters from introducing it into the next Congress. Given the countless hours of negotiations that have shaped it, the extent to which it has absorbed the best ideas from previous fiscal reform blueprints, and its rare, bipartisan backing, the proposal could become the point of departure for next year’s debate.

That will be especially true if President Obama embraces the plan, or something very close to it. He has largely stood aloof from the commission’s deliberations, but he urgently needs to regain the political initiative after the midterm debacle. House Republicans no doubt will devise an alternative, likely drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, a commission member who opposes its plan, that emphasizes spending cuts almost exclusively. It may also include a push to repeal Obamacare. In any case, the GOP approach won’t get much Democratic support, especially now that the ranks of moderate Democrats have been drastically thinned.

In short, President Obama has an opportunity to seize the pragmatic center in the coming debate about putting America on a fiscally sustainable course. And he can thank his Commission for dealing him a very strong hand.

In Defense of Obama’s Federal Pay Freeze

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Obama is getting a lot of flack for agreeing to a two-year wage freeze for federal employees.  “Why give away a negotiating chip?” ask the commentariat, “and with nothing in return!?”  Or as Kevin Drum put it:  “Obama has another two or three weeks to prove he’s not an idiot.”

Actually, there are three solid political reasons to freeze federal pay (even if the policy wisdom is debatable). First, it means he (not Republicans) get credit for something likely to be popular politically; Second, he shows he is capable of taking decisive action; Third, and most important, if he wants to negotiate successfully in the future, he’s going to need to rebuild his popularity.

In short: the pay freeze decision makes sense if you think of it not as a preemptive good-faith giveaway, but as a moment of leadership aimed at rebuilding public approval and all the bargaining power that goes with it.

Richard Neustadt’s classic Presidential Power offers this pithy aphorism: “Presidential power is the power to persuade.” By which he means not personal charm and clever argumentation, but a power that comes from public popularity and reputation. A president esteemed by the people and regarded as competent is in a significantly better negotiating position than one who isn’t. What Neustadt understood is that bargaining depends much more on public prestige than on the individual chips.

We just had an election in which big government was a starring villain, in which real concerns were expressed about runaway federal spending, and in which many swing voters lost faith in the Democrats. Obama is now preparing for a two-year battle in which he and the Republican leaders are both going to be appealing to the American public in a popularity contest that will determine who has to give in and how much.

Freezing federal pay for two years is a small move, but it’s a symbolic move. It signals that Obama understands that the public is unhappy with the size of government, and that he is doing something decisive about it.  It also shows he is acting as a leader.

By contrast, if Obama had ultimately frozen federal pay after Republicans had pressured him into doing so, you can be sure Republicans would be claiming all the credit, and would be spreading the narrative of Democratic capitulation.

The latest Gallup poll puts President Obama’s approval rating at 45 percent, and his disapproval rating at 47 percent, more or less where it has been since June. Not terrible, but not great, and right now about equivalent with John Boehner (41 percent favorable, 39 percent unfavorable) and Mitch McConnell (38 percent favorable, 36 percent unfavorable).

On the big issues ahead – well, basically taxes and deficit reduction are probably going to dominate the agenda – there are not only going to be two competing arguments, but two competing spokespeople making those arguments.

Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they are not interested in playing nice and engaging in the sort of polite bargaining chip negotiations that many commentators seem to want Obama to conduct. All indications are that they are not particularly interested in compromise, and are probably willing to do what it takes to pummel Obama and the Democrats into accepting complete tax cut extensions and massive federal spending cuts.

Essentially, this leaves Obama with two choices. One is to continue to operate in good faith, proposing reasonable fig leafs, and let Republicans continue to take the fig leafs and offer nothing in return because they don’t feel they have to. This makes Obama look weak and ineffectual, and also allows Republicans to claim equal credit for any popular compromises.

The other choice is to show some leadership and build back public support with issues designed to win back lost swing voters. Some on the left might call the federal pay freeze a milquetoast bipartisan compromise. But Obama can and should call it taking the initiative and a way to shift the narrative. He needs to say: “I’m listening to the American public, and I’m taking decisive and smart action to limit federal spending and getting the government’s fiscal house in order. I know you are concerned about our long-term future, and so am I. I get it. If Republicans want to put petty politics aside and work with me, I welcome their input and partnership. But if they’re more interested in posturing, then I’m going to take care of business without them.”

Choice one is doing the same thing over and hoping for a different result, which is one popular definition of insanity. Choice two is a gamble. It may not work. But right now it’s the best gamble he’s got.

RIP Steve Solarz

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The democratic cause lost an eloquent and effective champion yesterday when former Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) succumbed to cancer at age 70.

Over nine terms in the House of Representatives, Steve distinguished himself as one of that body’s preeminent spokesman on international affairs. He understood that the foundational principle of a liberal foreign policy – what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called its “fighting faith” – is implacable opposition to tyranny. And he applied that principle with unswerving consistency, backing Eastern Europe’s bid for freedom from its Soviet overlord, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and democratic reformers challenging pro-American autocrats in the Phillipines and South Korea.

We at PPI drew inspiration from Steve and were proud to count him as a friend and sometime contributor to our work. See his chapter in our 2006 book, With All Our Might, in which he argued presciently that Pakistan is the pivotal battleground in America’s fight against al Qaeda and Islamist extremism in general.

Finally Steve was a staunch backer of the National Endowment of Democracy, serving on its Board and receiving its Democracy Service Medal in 2001.