Somebody get Kent an Econ 101 text, stat! Preferably one not written by Heritage, Cato or Mises.

Commissions, where ideas go to die.

Military budget, as a per cent of GDP, finds US at 4.06%, spending 2 to 4 times our European allies and 2.3 times that of our most likely foe, the People’s Republic of China. Of course the black budget of the DoD and DNI would increase the funding of our international adventures as a per cent of GDP even more. Congress will never reduce our unsustainable military/industrial complex spending, nor will any commission suggest such a heretical idea.

In this case, the only kind of commission we would want is one “where ideas go to die.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the kind Conrad and Judd and their ilk want – as the post says, they want to “outsource” the hard lawmaking so they don’t have to deal with it.

The commission they propose is like the BRAC one – Base Realignment and Closure commission; basically BRAC made the decisions on which military bases to close and all Congress could do was vote yes or no. The idea being that all bases have strong support in their surrounding communities because of the jobs they provide, so no pol could afford to vote to close one in their state, thus, nothing was ever closed before BRAC.
BRAC worked very well – don’t have the numbers at hand, but a large number of bases were closed since, including two of the former five in my hometown here, San Antonio.

Re: social security, deficit spending, etc. – a BRAC-type commission would be a very bad idea. Conrad and Judd are in the group that has always thought SS was a bad idea, and want to destroy it.

There should be an uprising if this idea gets any traction at all.

why do I have the sneaking suspicion that this has advanced as far as it has, not because of the scold’s stated concerns, but that someone thought it would be could for 2010 and 2012 electoral atmospherics ??

that aside, well done David, very much appreciate your contextual shadings

Just remember this about the “SS will eat us all meme”…: Obama believes this crap.

Raised as a DLC Democrat…

… “Oh my god we’ve got to imitate Republicans and kneel to the corporations or we’ll be destroyed!”…

… he believes that adhering to the corporatist talking points are the only way the Dems can keep power.

Of course this ignores the wave of popular revulsion he rode to victory and also ignores the simple fact that Dems who do go that route… lose.

Seriously…these guys are willing to take draconian measures (an all powerful, unaccountable committee) to “reform” SS and Medicare (by gutting them), but when it comes to reforming health care (at the expense of the for-profit insurance industry): no way. This is free-market voodoo on steroids. What happened to the common good?

This is just infuriating.. and says so much about the state of the D party today.

It’s time we refocus… and demand much much better Dems.. because more Dems is just not working. We tried, we helped take majority control like no other, only to constantly be kicked in the proverbial groin!

We can haz cat food? Mmmmmmm…..

How would this actually work though, as money bills have to originate in the House?

And also, wouldn’t they have to tinker with the Rules Committee? And would the Parliamentarian go along with this?

My point is, there must be some vulnerability to be exploited to stop this madness.

If Obama messes with my social security which I will be taking in 2011 or my medicare benefits we’ll (baby boomers) give Congress to the Republicans in 2010 and the White House to them in 2012.
Let me refresh his memory. He said social security would not be tampered with during the campaign. McCain was kind of iffy.

On behalf of Dorothy, Toto and all the gang here in the Land of Oz, Happy Thanksgiving!

Very astute observation.

“Obama believes this crap.”

Obama believes a lot of crap, as things are turning out. Fire Geithner, Summers, Orszag and I’ll reassess. Failing that, I ain’t buyin’ too much more of what he’s sellin’…

Hear that, Rahm?

A group of fiscal scolds in the Senate are intimating that they would refuse to agree to raise the debt limit, sending the nation into default, if this commission was not convened. This does put the White House in a difficult spot, so if they are talking about a watered-down commission to defuse the attempted hijacking, and they actually figure it out, then at least a bullet may be dodged here.

I strongly disagree.

The threat to not raise the debt ceiling is a bluff. If the U.S. went into default on it’s debt, Conrad and his crew would get the blame. They really have no wish to do that. However, even some “watered down commission” would still be capable of doing damage to programs like SocSec and Medicaid, if it’s recommendations are thrown directly to the floor to be passed in an up or down vote.

It’s a bluff, and a bad one. Obama should not fall for it. He should call their bluff.

As Chris Bowers has pointed out, cutting SocSec and Medicaid during a financial crisis will make Obama look like another Hoover, and will further imperil the democratic party’s chances in 2010 and 2012. Especially if it comes on the heels of all the corruption and pay-to-p[lay behavior that was exposed by the healthcare debate.

Bad idea, Obama. Don’t fall for the bluff. The American people will know that you gutted their futures and forced their grandmas to eat catfood for no reason other than the greed and heartlessness of your own advisors.

Finally, people realize that the fiscal scolds are not arguing in good faith. Where were they when Bush threw away all our money on taxcuts for his rich buddies? Where were they when we illegally invaded a country that had not attacked us?

Obama, you can’t work with these Scrooges and think to avoid the blame when you make retired Americans’ lives worse during a recession.

I know this is off subject but yesterday I got my hair cut at Great Clips. The girl that cut my hair was talking about Christmas and shopping for her four kids. When I got ready to leave the haircut was $11 and I gave her a $20 tip. She was very happy. It didn’t change her life but maybe it made her day.
When the financial melt down started about a year and a half ago I started tipping waiters and waitresses 33 to 50% instead of 20%.
My point is in a slumping economy the service people are the first to feel it. Business slows down and on top of that the people who do come in may not be making as much as they did before so tips get smaller.
I’m making a pitch to you all to remember these people. I am well aware many of you may not be in much better shape than some of these service people but for those of you who can afford it give til it hurts. If you do it will feel good.
Giving money to a person isn’t tax deductible but a lot more rewarding than giving to the United Way.

Thanks for saying this. I always over-tip service people. My kids all worked in service jobs while in school.

This is Herbert Hoovrr all over again.

So let me understand this: The WH is starting to whine about deficits at the same time we’re trying to get our minds around the $Trillions in commitments that have been made to the “financial services industry?”

I must have missed something.

I don’t remember the details of how BRAC worked, but they have it as a model to follow, so it obviously can be done.

definitely time for better Dems; of course, many of today’s so-called Dems are not really Dems. Nor are they – in the MSM term – “moderate.” They are Repubs in Dem clothing, and we need them out of there.

Yes. Government by minority rule has worked so well for California.

Proposition pending in California…

What do you suppose its chances are? People still love Prop 13, right? Still make no connection to paying taxes and getting services, like oh, garbage collecting, raods paved, schools kept open…

Time will tell. It will be interesting to see how the movement to pass it is attacked. I’m guessing the existing minority party (Repuglican) ain’t gonna like it much.

I know how to solve the budget deficit problem, and start paying down the national debt. Raise taxes. Cut defense spending in half.

There. Done.

I never thought there were this many phony bastards in the world, let alone that they were all in our federal government :(

There’s only ONE agenda item the Cat Food Commission needs:

1. raise the taxable income ceiling for Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.

Done.

A group of fiscal scolds in the Senate are intimating that they would refuse to agree to raise the debt limit, sending the nation into default, if this commission was not convened. This does put the White House in a difficult spot, so if they are talking about a watered-down commission to defuse the attempted hijacking, and they actually figure it out, then at least a bullet may be dodged here.

argh!!! chris’s post was economic nonsense.

i posted this at OL also, but i’m pretty sure chris doesn’t read my comments.

dday, here’s some good progressive macro for you: What If the Government Just Prints Money?

if we’re ever going to have progressive economic policies to promote, somehow we’ve got to take off our neoliberal economic blinders and start figuring out what our real policy space is.

that would probably put us into a depression for sure. not my idea of a solution.

So this is how Obama plans to cut SS. Pretty clever. He can own a modest cut in the deficit while suggesting that he had no control over the means of cutting it.