The fiscal cliff negotiations have simply been too depressing to be believed.
From David Atkins at Digby’s place:
On the long-term consequences, it’s true that the President’s inability to stick to a negotiating position may embolden Republicans to take future hostages. But it’s also entirely unclear that Republicans wouldn’t be emboldened, anyway.
There is no reason to believe that the Republicans wouldn’t do everything in their power to hold the debt ceiling hostage no matter how strongly Obama and Reid had negotiated on the fiscal cliff. If the President takes the Constitutional option to avoid hostage-taking over the debt ceiling, there’s no reason to believe that the Republicans wouldn’t portray him as a dictatorial King George spending hard-working Americans out of their sustenance, justifying their efforts to take even more hostages in the near future out of formerly mundane government functions.[snip]
It doesn’t matter that Americans in general blame Republicans for the fiscal cliff mess far more than Democrats. What matters is that in the vast majority of Republican districts they’re considered heroes for standing up to the evil President, while the few sane or vulnerable ones in the House GOP caucus have no power. So why would they compromise? Why would they buckle? Their voters don’t want them to, and any retreat would only mean a potential challenge from the right. Most of them aren’t the least bit afraid of a Democratic opponent in 2014.
And so the depressing cycle continues. Republicans get crazier and crazier and behave in ever less socially acceptable ways and are rewarded by Republican voters, who as Atkins points out, are even more nuts than elected Republicans:
The truth is far more disturbing: the people in these districts, particularly the ones who vote in Republican primaries, know precisely what their representatives are doing and what they stand for. They like it, and continue to vote for representatives even farther to the right year after year. Half of Republicans believe ACORN (read, black government workers) stole the election for Obama. 44% of Republicans either want to secede or simply aren’t sure. Self-described conservatives were 14 percentage points more likely to want to a buy a gun after the Sandy Hook massacre than not.
There’s no easy answer.
We are in uncharted waters, an era unprecedented since the Civil War in which one side is willing to let the country burn down in order to achieve its goals. Californians already know this well, having been forced into perpetual fiscal crises by a bare 1/3 Republican remnant in each chamber. Even as Republicans continued to slowly lose ground and seats, the vast majority of the caucus remained entrenched, fearing only opposition from the right. They were more than happy to let the Democratic-controlled state slip into chaos in order to get their way. California Democrats were left in the ugly position of making a series of Sophie’s Choices, determining only which children to shoot to appease the tiny Republican minority. In an era of perpetual and consequence-free hostage taking, the only calculation that matters is which hostages to save and which ones to shoot.
So what do we do? California Democrats and progressives devised a strategy to deal with the mess:
The first step requires being honest about how politics now works. Another veteran of those California political wars, David Atkins, observed that expecting Republicans to act rationally is to misunderstand how the party operates:
The Republican electoral chips are stashed safely in gerrymandered hands, and any losses over fiscal cliffs or debt ceilings only hurt the President and the nation’s perception of government. There’s no downside for the GOP in bluffing every time in the hopes that the President will fold. Why not? When you’re playing with house money, it makes sense to go all in on every hand.
This realization led California Democrats and progressives away from focusing on the specifics of a deal and toward the kind of process and political changes that would end the obstructionism for good. Once it was realized the problems were deeper, people started working on the lasting solutions.
After that it was a simple but clear message:
Progressive organizations, websites like Calitics, and an increasing number of Democratic elected officials also began adopting similar messaging. They pointed out that Republicans did not share California’s values, that they were willing to destroy the state to impose their extremist values on a population that did not want them, and that the only answer was to take away their power to do that. It was made clear to people that problem wasn’t bad legislators unwilling to “come together” but that a group of extremists had used loopholes to block good things from happening and to cause people harm.
California also reformed its redistricting process, which ended gerrymandering and created districts that actually represented the real world. The result was that districts which had previously been safe were suddenly no longer safe as Republican reps had to face fair elections.
At a national level similar reforms are necessary.
The advantage Democrats have in this situation is that majority public opinion and the majority of actual American voters are on their side. The only thing that allows Republicans to take their hostages in the first place is a series of arcane rules that give the minority undue influence. Among those rules are:
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Gerrymandered Congressional districts
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Dysfunctional filibuster rules
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Disproportionate Senate representation
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Corrupt lobbying laws
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Campaign finance laws that give outsized political influence to a few billionaires
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Archaic electoral college rules
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Discriminatory workday elections
Bottom line is that Republicans in Congress can’t be reasoned, and won’t be reasoned with. They are absolutely prepared to harm the US to get their way. Wreck the economy to get a tax break for millionaires? Done. Ruin the nation’s credit rating to destroy unemployment insurance? They’ll dance in the streets. We’re dealing with extremist ideologues who frankly don’t care about the consequences of their actions so long as they get their way.
What we’re seeing here is the final throes of a dying movement that is prepared to destroy the rest of us as it goes down to defeat. The fundamentalist mindset, transferred from religion to politics, demands purity.
Andrew Sullivan on the Republican mindset:
Senator Ben Nelson said recently that many Republicans have yet to accept the presidential election of 2008, let alone the re-election of 2012. I see no real evidence to the contrary. Whether this is due to race, or culture, or fanaticism (they regarded Bill Clinton as illegitimate as well) I do not pretend to know. We know also, of course, that the corrupt gerrymandering of House districts allows those with power to rig the system so they can retain power – even when they have no broad public support. And we know that the whitest, rightest part of the Republican base controls the primaries and is determined to destroy any member of Congress who votes against the religion of permanent insolvency – which is what “no-revenue-increases-ever” means as we near a demographic wave of older folks. What a perverse cause: a party dedicated above all to the permanent, chronic insolvency of the American government. The cuts they need without any new revenues would simply end the welfare state in America and would never be tolerated by the middle classes in practice. And tax reform will only get us so far.
At a basic level, I welcome a public discussion about government and its role in our lives. I favor an activist government not because I believe government should be big but because I believe in the basics of the small d democratic project – that when we come together and gather our collective wisdom and grapple with the issues honestly we can do better. Paul Krugman says we should think of government as a giant insurance company with an army. Carl Sagan says we should regard every new policy as an experiment, one we can end at any time and try a new experiment. Deregulation and cutting taxes were an experiment. The Great Society programs were an experiment. We can look at the outcomes and debate them honestly. As one example, after ten years, the Great Society programs had reduced poverty to its lowest rate in American history; as the 1980s began and those programs were pared back or ended, the poverty rate began rising again. Cutting taxes on the wealthy has greatly increased economic disparity. Deregulation has resulted in a series of financial and economic crises starting with the 1987 stock market crash up through 2008. These are experiments. Our current approach is unsustainable and neurotically self-destructive.
At the end of the day, the Republican argument comes down to “Do it our way or the country gets it.” They’re extremists who don’t care if their policies hurt people.
#1 by cav on January 2, 2013 - 10:24 am
Well then, support the Begich Bill -
“Our seniors and persons with disabilities need the security of knowing the benefits they earned during decades in the workforce will be there for them when they need them most,” Begich said.
Entitled the Protecting and Preserving Social Security Act, the bill extends the solvency of Social Security for approximately 75 years by requiring higher-income Americans to pay Social Security on their earnings all year long and adjusting the formula for cost-of-living increases to better reflect the needs of our seniors and persons with disabilities.
http://www.begich.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=4b784c46-38c0-41f9-be08-6bc45db6ab62
#2 by cav on January 2, 2013 - 12:03 pm
Imagine this bill if Romney had won and the Thugs took over the Senate. Good times.
#3 by Richard Warnick on January 2, 2013 - 4:13 pm
I suppose, as a last resort, Dems could side with the American progressive majority instead of serving the interests of the rich.
But I’ll settle for getting rid of Senate filibusters.
#4 by brewski on January 2, 2013 - 5:16 pm
This is presidential leadership:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-pork-asparagus-nascar-rum
#5 by Larry Bergan on January 2, 2013 - 7:25 pm
There was also money for windmills. Why did US News leave that out?
Money for NASCAR is outrageous though. What happened to free market forces on that one.
Tacking things on bills at the last moment has to stop. It’s as if you went to the store and agreed to buy something for a certain price, only to find out you have been forced to buy a toaster after the sale is rung up. Everybody knows this is crazy.
#6 by brewski on January 2, 2013 - 9:33 pm
“If we as a state want to make a New Year’s resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it’s time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we’ve become.
Take the civil service.
The system was set up so politicians like me couldn’t come in and fire the people (relatives) hired by the guy they beat and replace them with their own friends and relatives.
Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.
The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.
But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers.
Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.
Either we do something about it at the ballot box, or a judge will do something about in Bankruptcy Court. And if you think I’m kidding, just look at [the bankrupt city of ] Vallejo.”
Willie Brown (D) Former Speaker of the California Assembly
#7 by Nathan Erkkila on January 3, 2013 - 12:53 am
It is their neck on the line, not Obama’s. Not to mention that considering the past, it seems quite apparent that Republicans aren’t as bright as you portray them. They thought they were going to win the election despite the violins playing their song. It almost makes me forget that they don’t believe in facts like evolution.
#8 by cav on January 3, 2013 - 8:14 am
You put up that simpleton Willy Brown as though he’d written the gospel, and call everybody else ‘Neanderthals’
That’s rich!
#9 by Richard Warnick on January 3, 2013 - 8:43 am
Conservative Opposition To Boehner Mounts On Eve Of Speaker Vote
They offered Boehner an opportunity to resign yesterday – he didn’t take it.
#10 by cav on January 3, 2013 - 11:11 am
While there surely is nepotism, and it may be even worse in California than elsewhere, for the most part, civil servants, aside from congress, are unusually competent, professional, caring and earn their money perks. If his criticism is because they’ve Unionized themselves, while the rug has been pulled from beneath most others (declining wages, reduced benefits, stolen retirements, you know the story), or the opportunity never presented, doesn’t mean busting civil service unions is the answer.
More jobs, and more unionization come to mind, but we’ve already been here, so….
#11 by brewski on January 3, 2013 - 3:58 pm
I’d like to answer your comment in a serious way, but the Authoritarians delete my posts even when I quote Democrats.
#12 by brewski on January 3, 2013 - 4:09 pm
Let me ask you a simple question. How much should a city administrator make per year? When he retires what should his annual pension be?
Note, the city has a population of 113.
Would the numbers $1.6 million per year salary and $545,000 per year pension surprise you?
#13 by brewski on January 3, 2013 - 4:39 pm
I just looked up my junior high social studies teacher. His pension is $112,000 per year. Multiply that out by every retired teacher in California, plus every other retired public employee. The question is not were they professionals, or were they good people. The question is, can you afford to pay that many people that much every year for 30 years.
#14 by Richard Warnick on January 3, 2013 - 6:26 pm
brewski–
Pensions are nonexistent for nearly everybody, so I’m not impressed with your anecdotes. We have to rely on Social Security: $1,234 average monthly benefit.
#15 by brewski on January 3, 2013 - 6:51 pm
Anecdotes? What anecdotes?
How are 1,000,000 public employees an anecdote?
How is the worst bond rating of any state an anecdote?
Is Greece just an anecdote?
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/12/13/stanford-study-finds-california-pension-costs-skyrocketing/
You are not impressed by facts?
You are Sarah Palin.
#16 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 3, 2013 - 10:42 pm
brewski,
That Stanford study is crap, their economics department is little more then a right wing think tank.
They use the same, wrong minded bullshit that was used to attack Utah’s pension fund.
First they assume no increase in employment over a 75year period, which is absurd.
Second they use a lower return rate then the funds 30year average, mind you this point is more complicated as the graph line isn’t flat at any particular rate, but none the less using their return rate assumption is deceptive at best.
Third, many assets held by large funds, pension funds particularly are under valued, these assets will show better value in the future when either their redemption date comes due(such as a corporate bond being redeemed at face value rather then market value) or they are sold when the market recovers a bit.
“Is Greece just an anecdote?”
Greece is unrelated, being attached to the Euro is what killed them.
#17 by brewski on January 4, 2013 - 5:00 am
Show me the left wing think tank who says that California pension costs are not skyrocketing.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2012/06/californias-pension-gap-widened-in-2010-research-center-says.html
#18 by brewski on January 4, 2013 - 7:17 am
I take it you did not actually read the report. I also take it that you know nothing about pension plans management and accounting.
“Like virtually all public employee pension systems, the 24 examined in this report discount their future liabilities at an expected rate of return, typically 7.75 percent. As noted, this practice is at odds with that used in the private sector, where similarly structured pension systems are required by law to discount their liabilities at a high-grade corporate bond rate. This practice of discounting at high assumed rates of return is also at odds with standard practice in economics, which holds that pension liabilities are full-recourse obligations that must be paid without regard to the performance of pension fund investments. As such, each of the systems substantially understates liabilities and overstates funded ratios.”
Joe Nation, PhD and Democrat
#19 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 4, 2013 - 11:04 am
That is the explanation, it does not necessarily make them correct.
Understating liabilities, is as stupid as overstating liabilities.
I am not going to argu that the Cali pension fund has problems, but that report uses a list of tricks to vastly overstates them, and then at the end of it throws out some big ass number with out any context for understanding that number, typical think tank bullshit.
Giving a 75year projection,
that neglects 75years worth of inflation(any study like this should adjust dollar values to current year dollars),
includes ALL interest costs from the underage without any statement of what portion of the liability is from these costs, again this is manipulative, as 75 years of interest can easily make the cost of the difference look 3-4 times higher then it really is.
Their is so many problems with that report, we needn’t quible over minor details like their explanation of return calculations.
Just like the Utah pension studies, or the SS trust fund report, this report is a loaded pile of crap designed to use numbers to lie.
#20 by brewski on January 4, 2013 - 11:20 am
Your comments reveal you don’t understand the subject. Never mind.
#21 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 4, 2013 - 2:43 pm
Your way of saying “uncle”?
#22 by brewski on January 4, 2013 - 4:08 pm
No.
You are factually wrong in all of your comments. Not opinion or spin or left or right. But factually wrong. Entirely wrong. You have never managed a pension plan, you have never accounted for a pension plan. You know nothing of the financial concepts involved. You are entirely out of your depth. So just wrong.
#23 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 4, 2013 - 4:51 pm
Name what is incorrect with my statements.
I merely point out that which is obvious with minor inspection of the reports claims.
The report just doesn’t exponent up.
California, A state with a GDP of $1.9 trillion dollars per year, which when projected out 75 years at an average of 2% inflation, will have a GDP of around $8 trillion dollars, and this excludes growth from population and development so it would actually be higher.
The report neglects to mention this when Stating its scary $500 billion dollar figure, which if adjusted for inflation to 2012 dollars, would be around $125 billion dollars in real current value.
And this report assumes that the entire deficit cost is debt funded, meaning their is a number of years of interest costs after the fund drops below $0 dollars, the point this is claimed to occur is never mentioned in the report. if you take this from the mid point of the reports 75 year projection, then interest costs would be somewhere between 30-50% of that figure depending on the financing model they project being available in 35 years.
So if we assume additional funding is found, the real short fall in 2012 dollars would be around $62.5-$87.5 billion dollars.
And again even that figure overstates the shortfall, as that report uses questionable metrics for returns, and ignores population growth as it relates to the employment level. Only in the most deluded wet dreams of conservatives will any state not have public worker employment increases over a 75 year period.
And now that California Democrats have a 2/3 majority in both of their legislative houses, a number of options for solving their problems open up they where closed under the states 2/3 voting requirements giving the minority veto power over legislation.
A state bank could save them between $12 and $16 billion dollars per year.
Single payer health care(CA one care proposal for example), could save them $6 to $10 billion per year.
Increases in fee’s to resource extraction industries could net California that much.
The PPACA’s medicaid provisions will save them a couple billion dollars by allowing the State to move optionally extended coverage people to the federal system upto 133% of the poverty line.
The PPACA’s will increase tax revenue in general, from decreased rates of uncompensated care being written off as loses on taxes.
California has plenty of options and time to figure out the best way to handle things, they have no need to rob the pension fund to solve their problems.
#24 by brewski on January 4, 2013 - 10:14 pm
You know just about enough big words to use them incorrectly consistently. All of your statements are wrong. All of them. Do you want me to go through every sentence of yours and tell you for your benefit why each and every one one is factually incorrect? You never even read the report in the first place. So you are making comments about a report that you did not read and then asking me to to do the work for you to tell you why you are wrong about something you never read. Go get a few degrees in finance. Then read the report. Then we can have a discussion among peers.
#25 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 4, 2013 - 11:11 pm
I am majoring in math, I have more then enough understanding of how the numbers work, and the common misuses of numbers, to parse this report.
You don’t need a degree in finance to see abuse of growth equations to misrepresent a dataset, nor does the fact that this dataset is composed of money make its parsing somehow special or different from any other set of data.
Fact is they are exaggerating the deficit, by understating return rates, while at the same time, neglecting the difference in the value of money over a large period of time.
They are using numbers to lie, and this is in an area (growth problem), where it is very easy jigger the numbers in believable ways to the untrained eye.
You don’t need a degree in finance to see manipulation of a growth/decay problem, high school calculus statistics is more then enough to see through this ruse.
It all just doesn’t exponent up.
So again, do you have an argument, supporting your position, or not?
#26 by brewski on January 5, 2013 - 11:50 am
You know just enough to think you understand, but not enough to actually understand.
You do realize that if CalPERS was a private company pension plan they would all be in prison for the methods they use and misuse?
The report by Dr. Nation, PhD and Democrat points out that CalPERS uses completely inappropriate ways to calculate their liability. If you don’t understand how they do this then you need a few more courses.
#27 by cav on January 5, 2013 - 1:50 pm
May I pipe up from my little bubble of ignorance that not every retiree will live a long and healthy life. In fact some will die even before retiring.
But. That will not keep program administrators from running the investments through Wall Street – generating what costs all THAT will inevitably entail.
IANAANAE
#28 by cav on January 5, 2013 - 3:58 pm
I hate to see Joe Biden treat Pukesters as if they’re actual members of the human race. I mean, there’s such a thing as going overboard on the good manners front.
#29 by Larry Bergan on January 5, 2013 - 5:19 pm
To get back on topic after brewski derailed the thread.
Glenden said:
I’ve come to see it even more cynically. I think they actually LIKE hurting people and destroying beautiful things. What else could explain what’s going on with ANY of their policies?
#30 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 5, 2013 - 6:51 pm
ThinkProgress and the Cato institute both employ PhD Democrats(or at least people registered as democrats!).
Your not going to start taking ThinkProgress economic studies as golden are you?
Or how about Statements made by whitehouse.gov, Obama employs PhD democrats as well!
You don’t need a PhD to understand these numbers they are not that complicated. Nor are you very complicated; you can’t discredit the argument so you are attempting to discredit the person instead.
“I’ve come to see it even more cynically. I think they actually LIKE hurting people and destroying beautiful things. “
After Charles Ponzie(I bet you heard this name before haha) blow up the French economy, well the results didn’t exactly go the way he could have expected.
Lets just say the people’s razor had a very long day at the barber shop.
Big things can change at greater then 20% unemployment, scary things happen at much higher then 30% unemployment, much higher then 40% will see entire government/social order systems violently ripped out and replaced(see Russia 1910′s, and the french revolution).
#31 by cav on January 5, 2013 - 7:23 pm
“Do it our way or the country gets it.” Yet, they’re by and large a political party whose governing philosophy is ‘government sucks’. Would you go to a doctor who says: x-rays and antibiotics suck? Would you use a plumber who thinks pipes are stupid?
#32 by brewski on January 5, 2013 - 8:27 pm
I take if from your not answering any of my simple questions that:
1. You have never personally managed a pension plan.
2. You have never personally accounted for a pension plan.
3. You have no idea that if CalPERS was a private company pension plan they would all be in prison.
4. You have no idea how CalPERS completely inappropriately calculates their liability since you don’t know how to correctly calculate their liability.
There is no such thing as liberal pension management or conservative pension management. There is no such thing as a Democratic way to account for a pension plan or a Republican way. The only reason I mentioned Dr. Nation’s party affiliation was to expose your lie that he was some right winger. He is not and what you said about him and his analysis is uneducated, ad hominem and verifiably false.
You have no clue about pension plans and how to run them but that doesn’t get in the way of you having your preconceived conclusions which you then make up shit to defend even if there is no way to defend them. Please, go get educated in this field and then come back to me when we can discuss this as peers.
#33 by cav on January 5, 2013 - 9:02 pm
#34 by Larry Bergan on January 5, 2013 - 9:04 pm
brewski:
Do you really think that pensioned teachers are going to be the downfall of our society? Do they own half the wealth of our entire society?
Look elsewhere. Possibly heirs.
#35 by Larry Bergan on January 5, 2013 - 9:18 pm
Ronald:
I only know Ponzie as a scheme, and would never register as a republican because I’m not one and would feel ashamed.
It would be easy though.
#36 by Larry Bergan on January 5, 2013 - 9:23 pm
To sum up this thread, but not Glenden’s point: Joe The Plumber ran for office.
Take me Lord!
Wait! Perhaps he was trying to do us a favor!
Will the media help us.
#37 by brewski on January 5, 2013 - 9:31 pm
“Do you really think that pensioned teachers are going to be the downfall of our society?”
I will take Warren Buffett’s and Willie Brown’s word for it.
#38 by Ronald D. Hunt on January 5, 2013 - 10:10 pm
Party affiliation really doesn’t mean much.
“He is not and what you said about him and his analysis is uneducated, ad hominem and verifiably false.”
Verifiable FACTS,
1. He uses a return rate that is below the pensions 30 year average.
2. He flatlines employment growth over that 75 year period.
3. He does not adjust for inflation when quoting that $500 billion dollar figure, leaving out the fact that it is given in dollars adjusted to 75 years from now.
4. He adds the entire interest cost to the final quoted short fall, which makes a huge difference to the actual difference needed to cover the short fall.
5. At no point does he point out that any projection that far into the future is near useless.
6. His conclusion follows the worst case scenario without mentioning the most likely outcome, even as skewed as his projection is in the first place.
These are my 6 primary issues, with this right wing study designed to give power to the slash and burn crowd.
His “study” doesn’t exponent up.
They used the same tricks to push pension reform here, 2% was enough of a difference to show the Utah pension fund as having a $6 billion dollar shortfall. Never mind that the number they used for their projection was well below the funds average return rate, purposely left out any possibility of asset value rebound after the crash, FYI the fund here in Utah has had both its assets rebound and improve in value and had higher return rates more in line with its 30 year average after “reform” toke away the pension from new hires, while also pursing a bunch of right wing delusions double dippers increasing state costs.
Thank heavens the California democrats don’t have to include the republicans in any talks on reform in that state, They can kill stupid practices like pension spiking without attaching a treasure trove of right wing stupid stealing from the States retired population.
#39 by Larry Bergan on January 5, 2013 - 10:32 pm
brewski:
Warren Buffett and Willie Brown said that teachers with pensions are going to be the downfall of our society?
I think I need a link on that one.
#40 by brewski on January 6, 2013 - 2:12 am
Willie Brown:
http://soquelbythecreek.blogspot.com/2010/03/even-liberal-democrat-willie-brown-sees.html
Warren Buffett:
“Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here.”