The People's View

If government is evil, then so are we

2013-05-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

If one lives in an oppressive system, like Iran or North Korea, then, yes, one can quite easily make the claim that government can be evil.

Modern history is littered with examples of evil governments, from Stalin’s USSR to Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

But what all these governments have in common is a lack of agency among its subjects. The people who lived and continue to live under those regimes have no political control over their lives. Decisions are mandated from some remote source, and all opposition is quashed. With my cantankerous nature, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the Iran of Ahmedinajad, or the Belarus of Lukashenko.

This is not the case in the United States of America.

For all our faults, citizens are in control of their own destinies, or should be. Elections are frequent, common, and free. Whether we like it or not, Tea Party governors and legislatures were elected openly, and their policies have the imprimatur of the electorate.
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Open Thread: GOP Shocked to Learn American People No Longer Trusts them on National Security

2013-05-14T12:27:00.002-07:00

Did you know that this is the Month of Scandals^TM that will once and for all bring down the evil Obama conspiracy? Neither does most of America.

PPP's newest national poll finds that Republicans aren't getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton's +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. Meanwhile Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular with a 36/57 favorability rating.

.... and

One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.

Not that not knowing where some place is has ever stopped any wingbat from thumping their chest about it. I have met more than one who insisted that India was in the Middle East.
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The last play in the playbook

2013-05-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

You will have to have been under a rock for the past two weeks to have missed the feeding frenzy being engaged in by what passes as the other major political party and its enablers in the press. Between BENGHAZI!!! and IRS-gate, it seems that nothing at all of importance has been happening in the world.

The GOP and the press finally feel they have what they’ve been looking for: a political “mistake” by Barack Obama which they can use to cut him down to size. One has to admit, that the nation’s first black President has been quite scandal-free since his first Inauguration, in spite of the usual suspects’ best efforts. Obamacare was supposed to be his “Waterloo”; it now promises to cement a generation of Democratic dominance as citizens benefit from a new social program, one which will guarantee that they don’t have to choose between the rent and their health. Obama brought Osama Bin Laden to justice, something which the previous administration had no interest in doing. And of course, before he was even elected, he had the Reverend Wright “scandal”—a moment he used to give the nation a sorely needed lesson on race. The scandal-mongers have, quite frankly, lacked decent material with which to work.
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How Citizens United Came Back to Bite Teabaggers in the Ass

2013-05-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

That's the way the story about the IRS giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups sounded to me. For all the concerns about the IRS' Cincinnati office's higher-than-usual scrutiny of Teabagger groups, here's something that's gone unnoticed in all the reportage about the story:

The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.

The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.

Citizens United was a group that basically were the Tea Party before it came to be known as the Tea Party. It was that case that made it possible for overly political groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on politics and still be tax exempt - which, by the way, created a huge, tax-payer subsidized sector of political speech - and in turn created room for the extra scrutiny under the IRS.
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Benghazi: The New Old Shiny Object

2013-05-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Republicans have called in their old chit: Benghazi. The media is doing its best to quickly paint this in the light of a scandal. Coverup! Outrage! OMG! Did you know that the CIA told the administration that it was a terrorist attack from the get-go but the State Department conspired with the OFA to edit the talking points to a mere spontaneous demonstration?

Ironically, some truth did come out in the fog of the dramatic scandal music from the GOP and the media. After testimonies, email revelations and fundraising grandstanding by the Republicans, at the end of the day, the story remains an incredibly simple one: before Susan Rice's now-famous appearance on the Sunday TV shows, the intelligence community was not only uncertain about the source of this attack, but they in fact thought that it was inspired by protests.

There's an easy way to find out whether the administration was trying to mislead the American people, however. Compare what Susan Rice actually said with what the CIA said, even in its first drafts, before the Evil Edits^TM suggested by State (and ultimately accepted by the CIA). Well, here's what Rice actually said. Let's take Rice's ABC News interview, where she said, after cautioning that there was an ongoing FBI investigation:

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to -- or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in -- in the wake of the revolution in Libya are -- are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.

And here's what the same news organization reported about the first CIA drafts:

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA's first drafts said the attack appeared to have been "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" but the CIA version went on to say, "That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

Obama Pays Down Debt, Smashes Republican House of Cards

2013-05-08T14:53:00.003-07:00

Oh boy. This is not good news for Paul Ryan.

After four years of trillion-dollar deficits, the red ink is receding in Washington, easing pressure on policymakers and shattering hopes for a summertime budget deal.

Federal tax revenue is up and spending is down thanks to an improving economy, January tax hikes and the budget cuts known as the sequester. As a result, the U.S. Treasury has slowed the pace of borrowing and actually was able to repay a tiny fraction of the $16.8 trillion national debt in the first quarter of this year.

Wait, what? Increasing taxes on the rich is actually raising revenue? I thought it was going to kill jobs! You mean there's no magic fairy dust to punish the socialist nemesis for raising taxes on our venerable "job creators?" And what is all this about the Big Black Spender actually paying down the national debt? Someone, please, stop the presses!
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Did Christians apologize for Timothy McVeigh?

2013-05-08T11:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a bio on Dr. Seema Jilani:

Seema Jilani is a physician who specializes in Pediatrics, and concentrates on International Health Care. She has worked in Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt and the Balkans. She has been a freelance journalist for Pacifica Radio for eight years. Her radio documentary, Israel and Palestine: The Human Cost of The Occupation, was nominated for The Peabody Award. Dr. Jilani's work has been published in The Guardian, The Independent, Newsweek, The Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers.

Dr. Jilani also blogs on Huffington Post, and yesterday posted the most extraordinary piece, detailing the unmasked bigotry she suffered at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Left without keys to her room, she tried to get into the ballroom to find her husband and retrieve her keys. Security staff disdainfully told her "no", saying she had no ticket—something which didn't seem to preclude Caucasian attendees easily passing through the security cordon.
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Aw, That's Cute: Republicans Dreaming About Using ObamaCare to Win in 2014

2013-05-07T14:36:00.001-07:00

For a while now, I have argued that in 2014, the Democrats' most potent electoral weapon will be a fully implemented Affordable Care Act. By October, the health insurance exchanges will be set up all across this country, and people will be able to start signing up for coverage, with the help of the largest refundable tax credit for health care in history. This president has outsmarted Republicans and humiliated them time and again when they tried to play politics with people's lives. Republicans, of course, will never learn. They are readying attacks for 2014 just in case the man responsible for taking out Osama bin Laden and securing all of the world's loose nuclear material screws up while trying to implement his most prized domestic policy achievement.

“There are very few issues that are as personal and as tangible as health care, and the implementation of the law over the next year is going to reveal a lot of kinks, a lot of red tape, a lot of taxes, a lot of price increases and a lot of people forced into health care that they didn’t anticipate,” said Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It’s going to be an issue that’s front and center for voters even in a more tangible way than it was in 2010.”

With spokesmen like these, is it any wonder that the people in charge of Republican senate campaigns keep introducing us to talents like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and Todd Akin? Not that it merits any sort of a serious policy response, but let's point out first of all that in 2014, Republicans will have to run against actual health care people are getting - people who never would otherwise get such care, and their families and neighbors and friends. Unlike 2010, Republicans will not be able to run against a caricature of Obamacare, they have to run against the real thing.
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Open thread - Bush Library toon time

2013-05-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Because it can never be mocked enough: The Bush (snicker*snort*guffaw) "Library".

Open thread - competing claims in Syria

2013-05-06T12:38:00.004-07:00

So, this morning I was treated to the gob-smacking news that Carla del Ponte indicated that there was strong evidence of sarin gas use in Syria—by the rebels.

BEIRUT — A leading member of a United Nations investigatory commission says there are “strong concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof” that Syrian rebels have used the nerve agent sarin.

Carla del Ponte, a former prosecutor for U.N. tribunals investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, made the comment in an interview Sunday with a Swiss television channel, the BBC reported.

Open thread

2013-05-05T18:00:00.005-07:00

You asked for an open thread, and an open thread you shall receive.

Grumpy Cat shall serve as your host.

#NRA #tcot

This is your open thread.

Repeat after me: "Andrew Shepherd is a fantasy"

2013-05-01T18:57:00.002-07:00

Cross posted from The Obama Diary.

Well, I think I’ve just reached my level of bullshit tolerance.

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Barack Obama sliced and diced the assembled luminaries, depicting them as trivial ratings chasers more eager to pursue a scoop so as to drive ratings and sell more advertising, than serious practitioners of the art of journalism, plying their craft as a public trust so that free citizens in a free republic can be fully informed about the issues of the day so as to render sober decisions about their own lives.

The poster child for this frivolous “journalism” is Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who seems to have upped her Obama-dismay to 11 over the past few weeks. The President’s take down of her article saying that he was nothing like Andrew Shepherd, fictional president in “The American President”, is a beauty to behold.

Maureen Dowd said I could solve all my problems if I were just more like Michael Douglas in “The American President”. Michael, what’s your secret, man? Could it be that you’re an actor in an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy?

Obama’s entire WHCD speech was a master class in telling a captive audience just how useless they were to the wider country’s problems which needed urgent solutions.
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The man in the arena

2013-04-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from The Obama Diary.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910

If one were to read the usual—and not so usual—quarters, one would be led to the conclusion that President Barack Obama orchestrated the entire deal which vacated the sequester on the FAA, while leaving intact the sequester on every other segment of our government. One would be forgiven for thinking that Obama signed legislation which had been passed in the teeth of stern Democratic opposition, siding with Republicans and perhaps a rump of conservative Democrats.

One would not learn from reading in these quarters that the FAA “fix” passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

Now, this is more Senate Newspeak, so what does it mean? Simply put, the measure was put before the Senate, and not one single Senator voiced an objection to it. Not Bernie Sanders. Not Elizabeth Warren. All the paragons of the Left signed off on the bill.
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Time to turn the world right side up

2013-04-18T10:06:00.001-07:00

Cross posted on The Obama Diary.

Every D or R senator from the 18 blue wall states key to D electoral col majority backed universal #guncontrol checks except Johnson in WI
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) April 17, 2013

This has been a hard week.

It began with the terrorist attack in Boston.

The middle of the week brings us the continued terrorist attacks which occur on our streets every day due to gun violence and the easy availability of Time to turn the world rightside upguns. The Senate took up a measure to expand background checks for gun purchases. Although it had majority support, it didn’t have the magic number of 60 yeas, and thus died. (Also killed outright were bans on assault weapons and large magazines. More on that later.)

Let’s not kid ourselves: the background check legislation was, at best, a small step. As Brad Plummer writes in the Washington Post:

The Manchin-Toomey compromise bill was a scaled-back version of earlier proposals to extend background checks to unregulated private gun sales. Many gun experts argued that the slimmed-down proposal would have only marginal effects on gun violence. But even that small step couldn’t get through the Senate.

“But even that small step couldn’t get through the Senate.”

Let that sentence sink in. Our political culture is in such straits that a minor, flawed reform to gun laws could not get through the Senate. Never mind the stricter legislation on magazine size and a ban on assault weapons—legislation which went down to decisive defeats before the background check bill came up. And, of course, the GOP-controlled House has consigned Newtown to the memory hole. It has played no meaningful role in trying to ameliorate the gun violence epidemic infecting the nation; it’s quite happy allowing the carnage to continue. It is, a priori, the price of “freedom”.
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Bashing Chained CPI is the Wrong Focus on Seniors' Cost of Living

2013-04-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

Quite often, we hear from those opposed to the President's budget on account of 'chained CPI' that it is a horrible idea because even if chained CPI is a more accurate measure of general price inflation, it disregards the cost of living increases for the population of seniors specifically, which, they argue, is greater than general inflation. That is because a disproportionate portion of seniors' incomes go to pay for medical care, the cost of which tend to rise faster than the price of other goods, and is not as prone to substitutions.

That argument seems sound, until you dig in. First of all, I doubt very much that the so-called defenders would be happy if we did tie Social Security's cost of living adjustments to the rise in per capita Medicare spending. Last year, per capita Medicare costs rose by only 0.4%, but seniors got a 1.7% cost of living increase in Social Security, and under a chained CPI formula, the increase would have been about 1.5%.

Still, one year hardly makes a trendline, and that it is at times very self-defeating isn't really the problem with that line of argument. To be perfectly candid, yes, health care costs rise exponentially as one enters one's golden years. But to say that the remedy is to throw an approximately a quarter of a penny on the dollar extra at a beneficiary is like trying to make the sea less salty by pouring in a bucket of fresh water. The focus should be on reining in health care costs without sacrificing the quality of care, not on taking umbrage at a Democratic president endorsing a proposal that would solve about a fifth of the long term shortfall of Social Security.

The ways to stem the growth of medical costs for today's seniors and the future ones need to address many things, but predominantly two areas: lifelong access to care and a system that needs to reward results rather than making tests cash cows for hospitals and providers.
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Be not afraid

2013-04-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

To the stranger who took me into her home, gave me soup and tea tostop my shaking and a phone to call home, thank you. #BostonMarathon2013

— Judith U (@Autismville) April 15, 2013

We don't know who did it.

We don't know if he was a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew.

We don't know if he was left wing or right wing.

We don't know if it was done with a political purpose in mind, or if his mind merely snapped, lashing out at a society of which he wasn't a part.

At this point, we know nothing about the bomber at today's Boston Marathon.

But I will not cower in fear.
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Explosions Rock Boston Marathon (Open Thread)

2013-04-15T13:11:00.002-07:00

I don't usually do breaking news updates, but this one is important. Two explosions went off near the finish line at the Boston marathon just a while ago. NBC News reports:

Two explosions went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday as runners completed the race and thousands of people cheered them on. The blasts were described by race organizers as two bombs, and witnesses told NBC News that there were widespread injuries, some severe.

The explosions were caught on video:

Our thoughts are with the people of Boston as they recover from this tragedy.

By the way, how long do you think before Wayne LaPierre holds a press conference telling us why we shouldn't ban people from owning bombs because criminals, like the ones that set the bombs off in Boston, would get it anyway?

A Deaniac No More

2013-04-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

This isn't easy for me to write. I got my start in politics 10 years ago in the presidential campaign of Gov. Howard Dean. It was a campaign that I joined not just because of Gov. Dean's bold opposition to the Iraq war but also his pragmatic record as the governor of Vermont. I slugged through the snow in New Hampshire, knocked on doors in Phoenix, and spent more nights organizing in my home state of California than I can count.

When Howard Dean didn't make it to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, I was a founding member of our local DFA chapter, known as the Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley. I was in San Francisco for DFA's launch. When he ran for party chair in 2005, we lobbied our DNC members. I served on the Board of the local DFA chapter for a few years, and as a Co-Chair for two years, determined to spread Gov. Dean's vision of fiscal responsibility and social progress. I adopted the monkier 'Deaniac83' proudly and early on.

I can no longer call myself a Deaniac in good conscience. Not any more. Not after this:

If this is true I may have to become an independant.businessweek.com/articles/2013-…
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) April 15, 2013

Gov. Dean is really ticked off because the president's budget restores most of the Pentagon cuts sequestration imposes. Obama's budget offers $100 billion in defense cuts, replacing the $500 billion in cuts from the sequester. That the president does that in his budget while also saving about the same amount through adjusting Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments to a more accurate inflation measure has the former Chairman of the DNC thinking about leaving the party.
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The Left's Dumb Fears About 2014, and The Democrats' Strategic Advantage

2013-04-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

The Loud Left is imploring the rejection of the president's modest proposal on adjusting cost of living increases to Social Security - and with that bathwater, the baby, i.e. the president's budget which would raise taxes on the rich, invest in universal early childhood education, and create a $50 billion stimulus package. A big part of the reason, they say, is because voting for a budget that includes the president's Social Security reforms would be political suicide, opening Democrats up to attacks, fair and unfair, from Republicans in 2014.

Two words: tunnel vision. Last week, I argued that by attacking President Obama viciously on chained CPI, the self-important Left was missing the forest for the trees, given Barack Obama's vast expansion of the social safety net. Today, I am going to lay out the tunnel vision of the armchair activists' political acumen. What they are missing is the comprehensive political dynamic that will be at play in 2014. Four major factors will influence 2014: the first three are being referred to as B.I.G. in the political press: budget battle, immigration reform, and gun safety. The fourth, and perhaps the most potent weapon for Democrats is Obamacare, which will be in full effect in 2014.
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Little Old Jackie From Pasadena

2013-04-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Pasadena was built by the kind of wealth so vast it doesn't need to wear a watch because it determines who is late. Let me set the environment for you. It is linked to Los Angeles by California and the west’s first freeway what we now call the 110 or Arroyo Seco Parkway, but when it was constructed was known as the Pasadena Freeway.

You might wonder how having the first freeway in the west means time waits for you, and let me tell you. They built it purposefully with looping curves and lovely parks surrounding it. No engineer’s straight line efficiency for these people. Driving into Pasadena was meant to be an event and one you went to through beautiful environs and narrow lanes. Consequently when I was a lad growing up just about every high school in the San Gabriel Valley had a missing person from the graduating class who went to fast and plunged into the LA River or missed a curve and slammed into a tree.

Must Watch TV on the History of and Changes to Social Security

2013-04-13T09:58:00.003-07:00

We have an awesome community here at TPV. As we were talking about the president's budget and Social Security this bygone week, you all pointed out Lawrence O'Donnell's history lesson to armchair "activists" on the history of Social Security, the woman behind it, and the relative recent history of automatic cost of living adjustments. If you haven't seen these clips, please do yourself a great favor and watch.

April 10: Democrats and the History of Social Security:

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Maddow Picks a Fight with FDR, and the Facts About Social Security in Obama's Budget

2013-04-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was a little taken aback to hear Rachel suggest on her show on Wednesday that President Obama was "picking a fight with the Left" by endorsing a slightly smaller inflation measure called "Chained CPI" his budget with respect to calculating cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients (as well as other purposes of government measure of inflation).

I am not saying that every liberal needs to fall in love with the idea of using a more accurate measure of inflation to calculate cost of living increases in Social Security which would result in minutely smaller increases, but picking a fight with the Left? Come on, Rachel. If Rachel thinks Obama is picking a fight with the Left, Rachel quite certainly is picking one with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You know, the FDR who instituted Social Security and

Set the income threshold for which taxes are collected.
Provided for NO cost of living adjustment. That's right. The original Social Security Act provided for no COLA whatsoever. In fact, until 1975, there was no automatic cost of living adjustments and benefits only increased when Congress acted to specifically address benefits.

Of course, it's not really true that by opposing chained CPI, Rachel is actually picking a fight with FDR. And she of all people should be able to see that supporting it as a part of a broader fairly progressive budget (but still a compromise budget) should is not "picking a fight with the Left."

Surprise! President's Budget Has Way More New Revenue Than New Cuts

2013-04-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

Bet you haven't heard that one in the national media yet - certainly not on the Left's media world still in a fit over Chained CPI. I bet here's what you've heard: Obama's revenue raisers are not enough, his spending cuts are too much, and it's not 'balanced' in terms of revenues and cuts. What you're hearing is that the president is proposing $1 trillion in cuts! Here's what they're not telling you: the president is merely replacing the sequester:

President Obama's budget also replaces the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester with smarter ones, making long-term reforms, eliminating actual waste and programs that are no longer needed.

The sequester, remember, is about $1.2 trillion in cuts in and of itself over 10 years, counting interest savings, and since the sequester is baked into current law, replacing them cannot count as additional cuts. Don't tell anyone, but the president's budget actually proposes a sum (including interest savings but excluding chained CPI savings) of total cuts slightly smaller than the $1.2 trillion. Rather than the sledge-hammer approach, here's how the budget's cuts work out:

Spending cuts: The budget cuts $200 billion from discretionary spending, balanced evenly between defense and domestic programs. It also includes $200 billion in cuts from mandatory spending by reducing farm subsidies and reforming federal retiree benefit programs. It also achieves $210 billion in savings from reduced interest payments on the debt and $400 billion in health savings aimed at cutting waste and fraud and strengthening Medicare.

In a different country, kabuki wouldn't be necessary

2013-04-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

President Obama released his 2014 budget today.

For the past few days, we've been treated to an explosion on the Left over proposals for savings in Social Security and Medicare. Pres. Obama has been excoriated as a Democrat In Name Only, wanting to put grandma on cat food, and in at least one blog's comments as a "gelding".

I'm not going to go into the particulars on the budget. You can do a search on Google and find plenty of ammunition to support whichever side you're on. (I recommend this blog post for a rather thorough explanation on the budget.)

Pres. Obama's budget is, in part, a good-faith offer to the GOP. He's taking John Boehner and Paul Ryan at their words that they don't want to destroy Social Security and Medicare, but to "reform" them. Obama's budget does that, while preserving both programs, and even enhancing them by setting a minimum benefit above the poverty line, and upping the benefits for seniors once they reach the age of 85. He achieves savings in Medicare by cutting wasteful payments to providers and drug companies; and, of course, the PPACA has provisions in it which help ensure Medicare's solvency. If Boehner, Ryan, and Eric Cantor were sincere in their stated purposes to "save" Social Security and Medicare, they would accept Obama's offer, or at least negotiate based on it.

Of course, they're not. Boehner dismissed the budget blueprint after it was leaked as too little, too late. Paul Ryan is on record as saying that there is no room for compromise. The GOP leadership and rank and file is united as a bloc against the budget.

And small wonder that it is. Yes, Obama has taken heat from the left for his chained CPI proposal. But the budget is loaded with items which should make people on the left happy, from closing tax loopholes for the rich to universal pre-K education funded by cigarette taxes. That the left has launched a jihad against Obama for his heresy against the dogma that there's no looming danger to Social Security is part of the problem facing this country.

Pres. Obama had to include social insurance "reform" in his budget. The Serious People ™ would demand nothing less; of course, they, like Boehner, say that Obama still isn't showing "leadership".

But this was aimed at neither the GOP caucus or The Serious People ™. All this infuriating kabuki is aimed at voters, at those who answer poll questions and determine the national debate. Because, despite what the DC media thinks, there is a debate going on in the country irrespective of their analysis.

Voters are tired of Washington gridlock. They want the two parties to work together for the good of the country. And they are on the verge of severely punishing the people they see as obstructing governance.

Obama created a firestorm over chained CPI with the megaphone left. But he now has the battle scars to go on the hustings and tell voters: "See, I gave in on something dear to my base. But the GOP is against any proposal if it includes extracting extra revenue from their backers." Obama faced down the leftist lions; Boehner doesn't have the courage or the power to do likewise with the rightist radicals. The Right demands nothing other than complete surrender on the part of Obama and Democrats. And, despite what the Left has been braying about for days, this budget is far from a surrender. As I said, it's loaded with proposals which should win praise from the Left. The fact that it isn't enhances the Kabuki element with the middle-of-the-road voters who will decide the 2014 midterms.
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The Deafening "Liberal" Silence on Universal Pre-K

2013-04-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

As the debate rages over the president's budget, the Left's prognosticators in the national media seem to be singularly focused on the president's proposal to use something called the "Chained CPI" to calculate increases in Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments, along with every other inflation adjusted measure of government. Here on TPV, we have dissected the merits of Chained CPI, its impact on Social Security, and the whole math on "cumulative" benefits. But this post won't be about that. If I haven't already convinced you that Chained CPI may be a necessary compromise for bigger overhauls in the budget, I probably never will.

I want to talk about something else entirely. I want to talk about universal early childhood education and the lack of intensity of support it is getting from the same outlets that are setting their hair on fire all over the place. For every group calling themselves liberal or a progressive - or for that matter for every legislator calling himself or herself a progressive - I have a simple question: Why aren't you supporting the president's proposal for universal pre-K with even a fraction of the passion, intensity and voracity with which you oppose Chained CPI?

After all, the lifelong benefits for children who have access to quality preschool aren't exactly a secret. Not only do a shamefully low 30% of three and four year olds have access to quality pre-K, the ones with the least access are the ones at the greatest need and the highest risk. Just how much better off could we be?

...without a high-quality early childhood intervention, an at-risk child is:

25 percent more likely to drop out of school

40 percent more likely to become a teen parent

50 percent more likely to be placed in special education

60 percent more likely never to attend college

70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime