Last Call

Something I don't do very often: quote Evan F'ckin Bayh and actually agree with him.

Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats, the White House and Congressional leaders are weighing options for narrowing the gap, including a bipartisan commission that could force tax increases and spending cuts.

But even the idea of a panel to bridge the partisan divide has run into partisan objections. Many Democrats, including in the White House, are loath to cede such far-reaching decisions to a commission and doubt Republicans’ willingness to compromise. And most Republicans remain adamantly opposed to tax increases, leaving the prospects for any bipartisan approach limited at best.

The proponents, however, are pressing for a Senate vote this month. “If we have the same process and the same people, we are going to get the same results,” said Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, who recently met with Mr. Obama to discuss the idea. “The Democratic Party wants to spend more than we can afford; the Republican Party tends to want to cut taxes more than we can afford. So we are stuck.”

We're going to have to raise taxes. We're going to have to make cuts, and I believe those cuts need to come in defense spending.

Neither is going to happen without Washington telling us it's the end of America.

Not doing so is what will bring that about.

Last Call

And if it's not Joe F'ckin Lieberman screwing over the Dems, it's Evan F'ckin Bayh.

Evan Bayh (D-IN) said on CBS’s Washington Unplugged said that if fifty senators were dead set on getting a real public option they could always do that by using reconciliation. Reconciliation measures can’t be filibustered, so a bill brought up through reconciliation would only need a simple majority to pass (50 votes plus the VP).

Evan Bayh said, “If the people [who] want the public option in its fullest form are just adamant about that they can always just get that with fifty votes.”

In other words, Bayh has no intention of giving the public option Senate bill an up-or-down vote because it will pass.

Think long and hard about that tonight. I suggest doing so while holding your health insurance bill for this month.

Cash For Clunkers Gets A Refuel

CNN is reporting that the Senate has just approved the House version of the $2 billion Cash For Clunkers refill, 60-37.

The Senate voted Thursday night to extend the "Cash for Clunkers" program with an infusion of $2 billion.

White House aides said earlier that President Obama will quickly sign the bill into law to prevent any interruption to the popular incentive.

The Senate voted 60-37 to approve the measure already passed by the House.

"He's going to want to make sure the funds are in place by this weekend," one senior White House official noted, because of the particularly brisk weekend business the program has sparked.

The program under Obama's economic stimulus package pays people up to $4,500 for trading an older-model vehicle with low fuel efficiency for new vehicles that get better miles per gallon.

The new measure had five Republicans for the bill (Brownback-KS, Collins and Snowe-ME, Bond-MO, and Voinovich-OH) but two Democrats against, Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Nebraska's Ben Nelson. Thanks, guys.

The 3 not voting, Byrd, Kennedy and Barbra Mikulski of Maryland.

Yes, even Evan F'ckin Bayh and Joe F'ckin Lieberman voted for the bill. Max Baucus too. But noooo, I have to put Democrat Stupidity down there thanks to those two.

Mining The Data On Cap And Trade

Nate Silver crunches the numbers on climate change legislation in the Senate and finds 51 votes is easily done, plus the two Republicans from Maine (for 53) but 60 will be a definite problem due to the following red state Democratic Senators:

North Dakota, West Virginia and Louisiana rank 2nd through 4th in per-capita carbon emissions. Five of their six senators also happen to be Democrats. If the Democrats could swap, say, Rockefeller and Byrd for two seats in Arizona, the going would be significantly easier on this issue. Byrd in particular: let's face it -- it's not clear how many more votes Robert Byrd is going to cast in the Senate period, and at the end of the day, I don't see one of his final ones being something that could significantly impair the coal industry in West Virginia. The path of least resistance to 60 votes probably lies elsewhere. Rockefeller, though, voted aye on cloture on last year's bill and is probably attainable.

Mary Landireu and Byron Dorgan, on the other hand, voted 'no' on cloture last year. Dorgan chairs the Democratic Policy Committee and could perhaps be more vulnerable to peer pressure than certain other senators, but I don't know what you do with the more conservative Landireu, unless you can spin some offshore drilling compromise to her liking or persuade her of the linkage between global warming and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Then there's Ben Nelson, who's a problem for the Democrats on nearly everything, plus Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, who can probably expect a few late-night phone calls from Rahm Emanuel.

Seeing that Evan F'ckin Bayh actually has the most chance of voting yes on the bill by Nate's reckoning, that should disturb the hell out of you. Here's the thing though. Should Republicans try to filibuster the bill, it will have to be joined by the Democrats to actually prevent cloture, which means it will be the Dems that will kill cap and trade, not the Republicans.

If the modus operandi of the ConservaDems holds, they will threaten to kill the bill with a filibuster unless they get every single one of the concessions they want, ala the stimulus package in February, resulting in a crap bill.

When you see Republicans accuse the stimulus package of not working fast enough, remember when the largest concessions were made, and to whom they were made.

A Cover-Free Zone

BooMan has a great piece up explaining what Senator Al Franken means as the 60th Democratic Senator: no more games of CYA for our serious, centrist Democratic friends (emphasis mine):

There are different kinds of politicians. Most politicians come from very safe districts. A huge percentage of incumbents are reelected in every election cycle, and most of them are challenged only nominally, if at all. What makes the gears grind in Washington is not the overwhelming majority of safe politicians. It is the handful of vulnerable politicians who decide what is possible and what is not possible in Congress. And vulnerable politicians are predisposed against change. In effect, they are temperamentally conservative. Every significant vote that they take could spell the end of their political career. And the Democrats have dozens of these timid creatures in Congress. How does Al Franken and reaching 60 votes in the Senate affect them?

Basically, Al Franken screws them, plain and simple. A timid, vulnerable, conservative Democrat wants anything but to be put on the line in a contentious and significant vote. Their first instinct is to figure out if a piece of legislation is going to pass. If it is not going to pass, they want to make sure their Democratic base is happy, and they will vote for it. If it is going to pass, and it is either going to anger big donors or become a painful campaign issue, they will vote against it. In each case, they are ignoring the merits and voting to create for themselves the least amount of pain.

A third category exists where it is their decision which is decisive in determining whether something will pass. This is their least favorite circumstance, because it means they cannot avoid angering their base if they vote against it, but the business community will not give them a wink-and-a-nod-pass on it if they vote for it.

So long as the Republicans had 41 votes in the Senate, the timid, vulnerable, conservative Democrats could get away with voting for progressive legislation that wouldn't pass and against progressive legislation that did. But now that the Democrats have sixty votes, every single bill the Democrats introduce should pass. Every nominee should be confirmed. And each Democrat that votes 'nay' on an issue is giving the Republicans the ability to stop the president's agenda. They can no longer hide. And that is that last place they want to be.

In other words, the Democrats playing both sides of the fence like Evan F'ckin Bayh, Joe F'ckin Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Arlen Specter (among others) now have to take responsibility for their votes. Once Al Franken is sworn in, Republicans are no longer capable of stopping legislation. Republicans have become irrelevant to the outcome of President Obama's agenda. It is now completely in control of the Democrats.

The GOP can no longer stop health care reform, climate change legislation, budget priorities, civil rights and social issues, or anything else the President wants to sign into law. Only Democrats can kill Obama's agenda now. Any Democrat that jumps the fence to vote with the Republicans against the President's agenda now has to take full responsibility for the action. Republicans know this. They're not going to provide any cover for those across the aisle. They can finally lay low and stay off the radar, which would be the first smart move they've made since the election.

The Party of No card no longer functions. Republicans can vote however they want to now. Democrats now have to count each and every vote in the Senate. The President's agenda is now in the hands of his own party.

We'll see how history unfolds...and how history will judge.

Last Call

Now that I've remembered to update the fact Ezra Klein is over at the WaPo now, he has a pretty decent post up on the Republican alternative to Obamacare (Yes, they actually have one. It has numbers in it.)

But get ready for the break: Unlike the McCain health care plan, the Burr/Coburn/Ryan/Nunes proposal does not leave individuals to fend for themselves on the individual market. This was the McCain plan's fatal flaw. The individual market is cruel, unpredictable, and expensive. The Patient Choice Act does not repeat it.

Instead, all those people who would be purchasing health insurance on their own under the McCain plan purchase it together under the Patient's Choice Act. States are tasked with creating insurance marketplaces where consumers can easily compare different insurers, regulating insurers so they don't make money by making health coverage unaffordable for sick people, regulating insurance products so they meet some minimum standard of comprehensiveness (serious wonks: This is the standard. Go nuts.), and creating automatic enrollment provisions that encourage more people to purchase health coverage.

Are there problems with the proposal? Yes. Big ones. The minimum benefit package is too stingy. There aren't sufficient subsidies for low-income consumers. The plan controls costs by encouraging people to purchase less comprehensive insurance. That's fine until people fall comprehensively ill. It has a tendency to mistake a health care policy paper for the Sean Hannity Variety Hour and say crazy things like "the Federal government would run a health care system — or a public plan option — with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office, and the incompetence of Katrina."

It's the last graph I disagree with.

But it's still a step forward for the Republican Party. It's an admission that individuals can't go it alone. That the state has a large and important regulatory role to play. The business model of insurers is not simply broken but actively cruel. A Republican Party that accepts the principles of this plan is a Republican Party that is much likelier to accept the principles of Obama's eventual plan.

Yeah, see, Ezra still thinks the GOP is going to eventually break down, rebel against El Rushbo, and make serious policy decisions WITH Obama rather than against him.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Two things here. One is the fact that as I've explained before, the GOP Plan means no Obamacare can pass. If it does, the GOP is politically toast. It would be a watershed, a paradigm shift, that would give control of Congress to the Democrats for a generation. They're not going to allow that.

Second is the fact that it's Evan F'ckin Bayh and the ConservaDems that are going to kill Obamacare, not the Republicans. The sensible centrist assholes will realize they can get anything they want in order to get this to pass, and they will in turn weaken the bill so badly that not only will it sink under the weight of its own suckitude, they will turn around and vote against it anyway when it becomes clear that the resulting nightmare piece of legislation has no real hope of providing health care for anyone, thus saying they stopped Obama's huge mistake. It will also have nothing to do with the multi-billion dollar Big Pharma lobby, either.

Pratical upshot is the Republicans have to have a credible alternative in order to kill Obamacare, and they know it will give political cover to the ConservaDems as well. It's nothing more than an opportunity to say "Well, we Republicans have a health care plan, but Obama rejected it out of hand. They're not bi-partisan at all, the rotten cheaters!" Then they will work with the ConservaDems to kill it. Period. I can see this coming from miles away, and I honestly can't believe Ezra Klein can't see this.

The plan makes it more likely that Republicans will accept Obama's government solution to health care? That's laughable. If the GOP allows Obama to pass health care, they are basically done as a party. Democrats will have the votes for years (same thing applies to immigration reform...Bush wanted millions of new Hispanic voters and signing comprehensive immigration reform would have given the GOP that majority they were looking for. Now Obama realizes he can get the same thing.)

Don't trust these jackals. They will never allow Obamacare to pass. "We come not to praise Obamacare, but to bury it."

A Derivative Of The Truth

Obama wants to regulate financial derivatives, the $1 quadrillion elephant in everyone's room.

In its first detailed effort to overhaul financial regulations, the Obama administration on Wednesday sought new authority over the complex financial instruments, known as derivatives, that were a major cause of the financial crisis and have gone largely unregulated for decades.

The administration asked Congress to move quickly on legislation that would allow federal oversight of many kinds of exotic instruments, including credit-default swaps, the insurance contracts that caused the near-collapse of the American International Group.

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said the measure should require swaps and other types of derivatives to be traded on exchanges or clearinghouses and backed by capital reserves, much like the capital cushions that banks must set aside in case a borrower defaults on a loan. Taken together, the rules would probably make it more expensive for issuers, dealers and buyers alike to participate in the derivatives markets.

The proposal will probably force many types of derivatives into the open, reducing the role of the so-called shadow banking system that has arisen around them.

“This financial crisis was caused in large part by significant gaps in the oversight of the markets,” Mr. Geithner said in a briefing. He said the proposal was intended to make the trading of derivatives more transparent and give regulators the ability to limit the amount of derivatives that any company can sell, or that any institution can hold.

The initiative was well received by senior Democrats in Congress with jurisdiction over the issue. The proposal had been expected, but some lawmakers, impatient with the pace of the new administration’s efforts, had begun moving ahead themselves.

Hinting at a lobbying campaign to come, Robert Pickel, the chief executive of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a trade group, said his organization “looked forward to working with policy makers to ensure these reforms help preserve the widespread availability of swaps and other important risk management tools.”

But some in the financial industry say that regulation is inevitable. “Nobody is in a ‘just say no’ mode,” said Steven A. Elmendorf, a former aide to the House Democratic leadership who represents several major financial institutions and groups. “Everybody understands that we’ve been through a financial crisis and that change has to happen. And the only question is how the change happens.”

Which is amusing, as Congress Senate Conservadems have already said no to overhauling foreclosure laws and resoundingly said no yesterday to limiting credit card interest rates. What makes anyone think they are going to allow the really, really big money in the financial sector to be regulated in any way? Derivatives are where the billions in Wall Street bonuses really come from.

What Obama wants then really doesn't matter, since Evan F'ckin Bayh, Ben Nelson, Arlen Specter, Blanche Lincoln, Jon Tester, and the other Conservadems are the ones apparently running the country by foiling that "wildly unpopular and partisan President" at every turn.

Funny how that works.

Mr. Popular

People still like Obama...if anything his approval ratings have gone up slightly.

President Barack Obama appears to be slightly more popular with Americans at the start of his second 100 days in office than he was, on average, during his first 100. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 7-9 finds 66% of Americans approving of how he is handling his job, compared with an average 63% from January through April.

Obama's approval rating has registered 66% or better in each Gallup three-day rolling average since May 2. His 68% approval rating reported on May 3 is tied for the second highest of his presidency, exceeded only by the 69% recorded immediately after his inauguration. And except for one 66% approval rating in late April, all of Obama's previous 66% to 68% readings were obtained near the start of his term.

Job approval is typically an important barometer of a president's re-election chances, and a 66% approval rating in the first half of 2012 would almost guarantee Obama's success in that endeavor. However, that is three years away, and, as Gallup presidential approval trends show, things can change -- sometimes radically -- over a president's first term. But despite today's seemingly positive environment for Obama, a separate Gallup question, asked in late April, indicates the degree to which Americans are keeping an open mind on the next election.

On balance, the majority of Americans nationwide say they would be inclined to vote for Obama in the 2012 presidential election: 53% say they would definitely or probably vote for him while 37% say they definitely or probably would not. Another 9% offer no opinion. This is based on people's early impressions about Obama, with no references to who his Republican opponent might be. (The figures are about the same among all registered voters.)

Sadly, with two-thirds of Americans liking the job the guy is doing, the Village has declared that Obama's not actually in charge of the country at all but in fact Evan F'ckin Bayh is.

Go figure.

Credit Card Completed, Cramdown Crashes

While the House easily did pass credit card reform legislation, the cramdown bankruptcy foreclosure bill was killed. Not by Republicans, mind you...but by a dozen Democrats.

Max Baucus (D-MT)
Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Jon Tester (D-MT)

And Evan Bayh didn't even have to vote against it. The banksters own enough of the Democratic Party to assure that no real reform will happen -- only trillions more in bailouts until America is broke. Remember, no cramdown means more Americans out of their homes, meaning more damage to all sectors of the economy and a longer recovery.

PS, Thanks Arlen!

No Limit Poker Time

Over at Big Orange, David Waldman says it's now time to seat Al Franken, and Arlen Specter has just given the Dems the leverage to squeeze the GOP with: Specter's current committee seats.

Seat Al Franken and give him his committee assignments now, or we'll block a new organizing resolution that would let you reassign Specter's previously Republican committee seats to one of your own.

Until a new organizing resolution is adopted, Specter's committee seats (Appropriations, Judiciary, Veterans' Affairs, Environment & Public Works, Special Aging) are locked in. He'll be caucusing and (sometimes, anyway) voting as a Democrat, but will be occupying Republican seats.

Democrats should demand Republican agreement to seat Franken and give him his committee assignments now, or they'll just block a new organizing resolution until he arrives, and change it as they see fit later on. After all, with 60 Democrats (once Franken is finally seated), they can give themselves any ratios they want, whether they opt to remain true to the 60/40 split in the Senate or not, since there won't be enough votes to filibuster an unfair organizing resolution.

But we wouldn't want it to come to that, would we?

Until there's a change, Appropriations goes effectively from 17-13 in favor of Democrats to 18-12. Judiciary to 12-7. Environment to 12-7. Veterans' Affairs to 10-5. Special Aging to 12-7.

Now of course I can totally see Evan Bayh trying to scuttle this, but even he can't complain too much about getting the legitimately elected Franken seated without bringing the hammer down from Rahmbo up top.

Still, it's an effective plan. It's nasty and stooping to the level of the GOP over the last 8 years, and they were made to pay for it (and the Dems must keep that in mind). But it's an option.

Even Worse For Cramdown

Mortgage bankruptcy reform is looking all but dead at this point. Democrats are looking like they just don't have the votes to beat a guaranteed filibuster.

On Tuesday, a key Democrat came out against the compromise bill, which would allow judges in certain circumstances to modify mortgage terms -- a process known as cramdown. Meanwhile, a second crucial Democratic vote said that he doubted the bill had enough support for his vote to decide it one way or the other.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) spoke poorly of Durbin's compromise proposal, which is now being circulated. "I don't think it's much of a compromise," Landrieu told the Huffington Post. "My community bankers are really opposed to it and I think it's important for people to realize there is a big difference right now in the country between the health of these large international financial institutions and our local community banks...I think we gotta be careful about adopting processes and procedures that would really hurt our community banks."

Asked if she was a definite no, Landrieu responded that she was "pretty close to a definite No."

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) wouldn't say whether or not he supported the compromise, but he nevertheless expressed deep skepticism.

"My concern about this is that in our appropriate zeal to help the four or five percent of Americans who might be faced with bankruptcy, we don't unduly raise the costs of homeownership on the 95 percent who never will," Bayh, who supported the legislation last year, told the Huffington Post.

Backers of the bill say that they are close to getting the 60 votes needed; Bayh and Landrieu are key votes needed for passage. Bayh, however, painted a much more pessimistic picture, saying that he was unlikely to be the deciding vote.

Surprise! Evan F'ckin Bayh again and his merry band of Club For Growth backstabbers!

Remember folks, the more foreclosures, the longer it takes for home prices to stabilize, and the worse the economy gets. Bayh's Boys are more worried about hurting the banks' feelings than the American homeowner.

The GOP, The Budget, And You

BooMan theorizes that by unanimously voting against Obama's budget in both the House and the Senate, the GOP will be frozen out of universal health care, a mistake they'll be paying for for a long, long time.

If they had prevailed on this issue of budget reconciliation, they could have adopted a strategy of helping to pass a health care bill this year, but wielding the threat of a filibuster to kill off a public option. They could take some credit for expanding health care coverage and still protect the HMO's and other private insurers.

But they didn't try to lure the Democrats into a trap. They telegraphed their intentions to be rawly partisan and to act in bad faith, and that sealed their fate. The Democrats will simply enact health care through the budget reconciliation process in the fall where they will only need 50 rather than 60 votes to pass it. The Republicans no longer need to be consulted on any aspect of the legislation because there is no need for any of their votes and little incentive to give them any avenue for taking credit. They shut themselves out of the process of creating the most significant legislation in three generations. They didn't even try to outsmart the Democrats.

However, I think BooMan is wrong. The GOP doesn't have to outsmart the Dems. Obama's final budget vote will be scuttled (and health care and cap-and-trade along with it) by Evan Bayh's Conservadems.

Evan Bayh's crew is exactly who I'm worried about. I forsee them holding up the final bill at 49 votes and taking the country hostage in order to kill cap-and-trade, health care, and everything else. The GOP clearly anticipates this, and then saying "Well now Mr. President, you told us our votes didn't matter. Your own party killed your budget. Now, it's our turn."

For instance, if Evan Bayh can get the same 9 other Dems to go along with all 41 Republicans that went along with the budget amendment to give a $250 billion estate tax cut over ten years, then he'll have the 51 votes he needs to hold Obama's budget hostage.

If you're curious, the other 9 Dems were Max Baucus (D-MT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Jon Tester (D-MT).

If Bayh can get these same votes on the final budget, he wins. He can then hold the budget hostage and strip health care, cap-and-trade, and anything else out of the budget he can. If health care and climate change legislation die, it's going to be because the Democrats killed it.

If these ten Dems are willing to give a $250 billion tax break to the richest Americans, money that could be used for universal health care instead, they are the ones who will turn around and say "Sorry, we can't possibly fund health care at this time." They are the ones who will kill it in the reconciliation process.

Obama needs to watch his back. The GOP isn't killing him. His own party is.

[UPDATE] Ezra Klein recounts the long, strange career of Evan Bayh. New tag, because I specifically complain about this douchebag enough: Evan F'ckin Bayh.