Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 37

Collapse of the Senate deal | Michael Tomasky

Your Senate at work:

As the administration stepped up its most intense negotiations with congressional Republicans since President Barack Obama took office, an agreement to hold four Senate votes on the Bush-era tax cuts fell apart late Thursday night.

The apparent deal to schedule four votes Friday on tax cuts was scrapped after a Senate Republican objected to the Democratic proposal, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday...

...Senate Democrats left the Capitol Thursday believing Reid struck an agreement with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to hold a series of four votes Friday. Reid even scheduled a news conference after the caucus meeting to announce the deal.

But about 45 minutes after the caucus meeting broke up, Reid unexpectedly walked from the Senate floor to McConnell's office to try to salvage the faltering deal. The minority leader, however, had already left for the night. Reid stood in the lobby of the ornate Senate office, popping Hershey's Kisses while he waited for aides to reach McConnell by phone. Reid was then told that one Republican senator, who was not identified, objected to the agreement.

That's an interesting workplace environment, eh? You're the boss. You work out a plan. One person out of 100 objects. The plan collapses, and you don't even get to know who did it.

Now apparently Reid will hold two votes today, one on raising taxes for households above $250,000, as the House did yesterday, and one on the Schumer plan, to raise them above $1 million. I would expect that both will have 50-something votes. But neither will have the filibuster-proof 60. It'll be very interesting to watch the usual Democratic suspects - Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and so on - and see whether they agree with Republicans that middle-class people's taxes should be held hostage to millionaires' taxes.

As for the Republicans, no one can seriously call any Senate Republican a moderate anymore. There are hard-shell conservative ideologues, and there are those who surely know better but just don't care about legislating with any integrity. Anyone who votes against especially the Schumer proposal is either one or the other.

The position represented by such a vote, that people who make more than $1 million a year must continue to get tax cuts, is an extreme radical position by the standards of American history. Remember, even if the Pelosi position were somehow to pass, multi-millionaires would also see taxes cut on the first $250,000 of their earnings, which in the average case would be about $6,700 or so.

And the increase on households up to $500,000 under what the House approved yesterday would be minimal. From Bloomberg News:

Under the Democrats' plan to end a tax break for those earning more than $200,000 per individual or $250,000 per couple, the 3.8 million filers who fall in the $200,000 to $500,000 income range would pay $2 billion more in 2011 taxes, or an average of $532, according to a July 30 letter from the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

What is that - $532 on a $350,000 dollar earner? It's nothing. The whole business is disgusting.

It's an extreme radical position. And because of Democratic fear, Republican intransigence and Senate rules, it's going to win.

US CongressUS economyMichael Tomasky
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Friday quiz: recipe for fun | Michael Tomasky

Don't most of us of a certain demographic fancy ourselves these days expert chefs? Sure we do. And of course some of us, or you, are. I myself am reasonably handy in the kitchen. I have an instinct for sauces and for what flavors might work together, and one for mimickry as well, meaning that I can go to a restaurant (except the really fancy ones where they're doing things in the kitchen I've never heard of), eat something, think about what seemed to be in it and how it was probably constructed, and I can probably cook it the next night at home.

It will almost never look the same, because I just don't bother to take that kind of care with cooking, or I just can't flip the fish without it breaking apart. I even once bought one of those thingies that's designed specifically for flipping fish, but even it is far from foolproof in my hands. However, presentation aside, it will often taste almost exactly the same, the only difference being that I have (intentionally) used about one-third the butter they did (if you try this and wonder why yours doesn't taste as good as the restaurant's, butter is almost surely the reason, which is why busybodies like Mayor Bloomberg will never get the finer restaurants to post their nutritional information).

Anyway I got to thinking last night, here we are in the season of excess and bounty, at least for those of us fortunate enough to be excessive and bounteous; so why not have a quiz on food and cooking? Having thought of no good reason why not, here we are.

By the way, have any of you ever cooked a goose? Every Christmas, I have this idea that I'm going to roast a goose. Then I read that the meat is not really that tasty, and that it's so greasy you smell up the whole ground floor of your house. But one of these days, perhaps when I have older and less discriminating taste buds and a larger house, by cracky I'm going to do it. In the meantime, let's go.

1. In French cooking, there are five "mother sauces" from which all sauces emanate. In a rare six-option question, choose the one below that is not one of the five.
a. Veloute
b. Tomat
c. Sangre de Boeuf
d. Bechamel
e. Espagnole
f. Hollandaise

2. We've all heard the name Escoffier, but who exactly was he?
a. Auguste Escoffier, leading French authority on food and cooking of the fin-de-siecle and early 20th century who helped set up the Ritz hotel chain
b. Camille Desmoulins Escoffier, the greatest chef of Paris at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, killed by the Germans and thus martyred for all time
c. Denis de Brienne Escoffier, chef to Louis Napoleon and history's most famous patissier

3. What's the difference between lamb and mutton?
a. Lamb is the meat of a female sheep, and mutton is of a male
b. Lamb comes from a sheep one year old or younger and with no permanent incisors, while mutton is from an older sheep with at least two permanent incisors
c. Lamb is from a so-called "full" male sheep that has not yet been castrated, which typically happens at nine months; mutton is from a castrated male, or a female

4. The restaurant Antica Port'Alba, which still exists today on the same site, began serving what in Naples in 1738? (I left part of the restaurant's name out because it names the dish in question.)
a. Frittata
b. Pizza
c. Gnocchi

5. The animal that served as the basis for this classic dish was domesticated as far back as the 10th century and exported to Long Island, New York in the 1870s:
a. General Tso's Chicken
b. Szechuan Beef
c. Peking Duck

6. Match the spice to the country or region of origin:
Vanilla
Cinnamon
Cumin
Nutmeg

Persia
Indonesia
Mexico
Sri Lanka

7. The beginnings of this nation's modern cuisine were created in this town in the 17th century by nuns who were apparently the first to fuse native and colonial influences:
a. Mexico; Puebla
b. Vietnam; Da Nang
c. Ethiopia; Addis Ababa

8. What is ghee, and with what cuisine is it most notably associated?
a. Clarified butter; Indian
b. Fat rendered from pork entrails; Thai
c. An emulsified lard mixture; Lebanese

9. Match the famous chef to the innovation with which he or she is associated.
Ferran Adria
Alice Waters
Jose Andres

Encouraged the use of locally grown and organic ingredients
Vastly increased the popularity of the concept of small-plate dining
Worked in molecular gastronomy, inventing things like culinary foams

10. If you're noshing on Tintern, Caerphilly and Pantysgawn, what are you eating?
a. British dessert cookies
b. British cheeses
c. British varieties of apples

11. True or false: If your dish includes sausages as well as seafood, you are probably eating an etouffee, not a gumbo.

12. If I asked you to prepare for me a Waldorf Salad, which of these ingredients would you not need to buy?
a. Apples
b. Walnuts
c. Cranberries

I know I always say this, but that one really was fun, no? Answers below.

Answers:
1-c; 2-a; 3-b; 4-b; 5-c; 6: Vanilla = Mexico, Cinnamon = Sri Lanka, Cumin = Persia, Nutmeg = Indonesia; 7-a; 8-a; 9: Adra = molecular gastronomy, Waters = local ingredients, Andres = small plates; 10-b; 11-false; 12-c.

Notes:
1. "Sangre de Boeuf" is a great fake answer. I should note here that some sources refer to four basic French sauces, not five, although most in my research cite five. Those who use four leave out Tomat, so if you objected to it as well on this basis, give yourself the point, but be honest!
2. Good fake outs here too. Students of French history will have gotten a nice chuckle out of b, which one of you may choose to explain to everyone if you wish.
3. I didn't really know until researching this that mutton is still preferred in some parts of the Middle East. I don't recall eating it in Beirut. What's it like?
4. Pizza really goes back to about the first century. Look up "trencher" if you're interested.
5. Long Island should have been the tip off. Long Island Duck and Pekin (not Peking) Duck are basically the same species.
6. Very interesting, eh? You may be thinking that Vanilla is from Madagascar, but apparently it is from Mexico originally and was imported to Madagascar.
7. Probably one of the tougher ones here; both fakes highly plausible.
8. Italian cuisine will always be my number one (except for their desserts, which oddly I detest almost uniformly). But man do I love Indian food.
9. Shouldn't have been too hard. I had a ravioli dish served in an emulsified foam of some kind in Santiago in 2008. Amazing.
10. A gimme for Brits, perhaps a challenge for Yanks.
11. Traditionally, etouffee has one protein only, usually crawfish or shrimp, while gumbo combines fish, chicken and sausages.
12. Invented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, in the 1890s.

Tell us how you did, share with us your culinary loves and hates and yes, Bookie, swap recipes. I think this should be an interesting thread.

United StatesMichael Tomasky
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Pelosi's final win | Michael Tomasky

Well, Nancy Pelosi won again in her swan song big vote as majority leader. The Democrats just passed extending tax cuts only for households under $250,000 by a vote of 234-188. Exactly 20 Democrats voted with the Republicans, while, to my amazement, three GOPers actually voted with Pelosi. To my double amazement, one was Ron Paul. No major surprises that I can see among the Democratic 20. And Michelle Bachmann missed the vote.

So here's what is interesting about how this happened. Usually, when the majority clears a bill for final passage in the House, there's something called a motion to recommit, which is the minority's chance to tack stuff onto the bill at the last minute to try to pry votes away. Republicans are expert at using the motion to recommit in really skeazoid ways. For example, there will be a Democratic bill that will increase spending in some way that Republicans don't like. They'll introduce a motion to recommit to attach language to bill calling for, say, all multiple murderers to be released from prison immediately. That way, if a Democrat votes for the spending, s/he is also voting to free murderers.

I exaggerate, but you get the picture. GOP motions to recommit usually do come down to having something to do with sex offenders, flag burning, etc. etc. So who knows what sort of language they might have added here.

There's a way for the majority to avoid a mtr, which is to pass a bill under "suspension of the rules" - but that requires a two-thirds majority. And that was impossible here for Pelosi.

And yet, the D's managed to bring this us today under a sneaky third way. TPM explains:

Democrats figured out a way to avoid this. They're attaching their tax cut plan as an amendment to a separate bill [the Airport and Airway Extension Act, to wit]. That legislation already passed the House, and has just been returned from the Senate. The rules say it can't be recommitted. So the GOP's hands are tied.

Dirty pool? Maybe. The kind of thing either side would do in the majority, as we will soon see.

But the question I and some others are wondering is: If the Dems could pull this sleight-of-hand now, why couldn't they have pulled it in October? Remember: with this vote, 181 Republicans put themselves on record as opposing tax cuts for the middle class. That's the Dem spin, but it is a plausible thing to say. Make them defend their position.

Why not have forced this before the election? It didn't have to be the airport bill. It could have been attached to any bill that the House and Senate had cleared. It may be that they feared it wouldn't have worked, or that they didn't have the votes then. Something tells me they just didn't think of it.

Well, if nothing else, a major embarrassment for Obama and the Democrats as a whole was just avoided, since it did pass.

Now that I think of it, there are a few D's who cast what we could call reasonably brave votes here. They represent swing-to-red districts, won reelection in very tough and close races last month, and probably felt some pressure back home to take the GOP position. I'm counting around 15 or so. That's fairly respectable. I tip my hat to them, and I'd name them, except you've never heard of them so you wouldn't care one way or the other. Maybe we'll find opportunities in the future to make mention of them.

None of it changes the likely bottom line, which is that the White House will agree to extend all cuts for two or even three years. But if I were Mitch McConnell, I'd frankly be pushing to make them all permanent. I don't see any good game-theory reason why Reps shouldn't. They think Obama will never let taxes go up on the middle class, and they are probably right. It would probably doom his presidency. So why shouldn't they just push for the whole ball of wax? We shall see what the coming days bring. It all could have been avoided if the Dems had held this vote in October.

US CongressUS economyNancy PelosiMichael Tomasky
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The House votes today on taxes | Michael Tomasky

So it will be a day of drama in the House of Representatives as they vote on whether to extend the current tax rates for households under $250,000 only.

Obviously, no Republicans will support the measure. The question is whether Nancy Pelosi has the votes for it to pass. Maybe she knows. Most observers don't.

House Republicans are portraying this as a highly partisan move on Pelosi's part. They say that Obama just two days ago opened negotiations with Republicans, and now here comes Pelosi stepping on that process and forcing this terribly partisan vote and shame on her.

In the meantime, though, Mitch McConnell released that letter yesterday, and that was certainly a partisan move and seemed to suggest that this whole idea of negotiating was a joke as far as the GOP was concerned. Read this account from the NYT of what happened on the Senate floor yesterday:

"For the past two years, Democrat leaders in Washington have spent virtually all their time ticking off items on the liberal wish list while they've had the chance," Mr. McConnell said. "Here we are, just a few weeks left in the session, and they're still at it. Last month, the American people issued their verdict on the Democrats' priorities. Democrats have responded by doubling down."

Mr. McConnell's announcement of an all-out blockade came just a day after he applauded Senator Christopher R. Dodd, the retiring Connecticut Democrat, for a farewell address in which Mr. Dodd called for greater civility and cooperation among lawmakers. His announcement drew howls of anger from Democrats who said it was just the latest evidence of Republican obstructionism.

To emphasize their point, Democrats went to the floor and attempted to bring up numerous bills, including a measure to extend jobless benefits and a measure to promote clean energy. On behalf of his colleagues, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, repeatedly voiced objections, blocking the bills and prompting a furious speech by Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri...

...If Republicans had any worry about being seen as uncooperative, they did not show it. Mr. Barrasso coolly objected to the Democrats' efforts to bring up other bills, often saying he knew little about what the Democrats were trying to do.

"What I do know," Mr. Barrasso said, "is 42 senators from this side of the aisle have signed a letter, a letter to say that what we ought to do and what we need to do is to find a way to fund the government and prevent a tax hike on every American come Jan. 1."

I started with McConnell's quote because it's an excellent example of how Republicans play this game. On its face, the quote sounds reasonable. But then you stop and think for a second and you remember that majorities support the Democratic position on the tax cuts and on don't ask don't tell repeal. Puts things in a different light.

You might want to click through and read McCaskill's remarks. I'd be interested in what you think of them. My reaction was, well, it was your job over the last two years to make sure people knew, and you didn't.

Anyway. What will be the upshot of the House vote today? I'm afraid I think this is a situation in which there's more to be lost than gained for Democrats. That is, if the Pelosi position triumphs, I don't see it making all that much difference; it's not as if outgoing House Democrats, of whom everyone knows there will be 60 fewer next month, are going to persuade Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe to rethink their positions. The Senate is still the Senate, in other words, and the math there is the math. The Republicans have the votes to block, and they will. A 10-vote margin in a House vote, which is probably about the best Pelosi can hope for, won't impress anyone.

On the other hand, if the House vote today fails, it's probably pretty symbolically damaging to the Democrats' negotiating position and leaves that much more blood in the water for Republicans to catch the scent of.

So why hold the vote at all? That's a good question. If Democrats wanted to go on record on these tax cuts, the time to do it was Oct. 2, not Dec. 2.

US CongressUS economyMichael Tomasky
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Ted Strickland's wise words | Michael Tomasky

Ted Strickland is the outgoing Democratic governor of Ohio who narrowly lost reelection in a state where Democrats got just slaughtered top to bottom. He was widely seen as a good governor and a completely decent man. In an interview with HuffPo that went up today, he made some frank observations about his party:

"I think there is a hesitancy to talk using populist language," the Ohio Democrat said in a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post. "I think it has to do with a sort of intellectual elitism that considers that kind of talk is somehow lacking in sophistication. I'm not sure where it comes from. But I think it's there. There's an unwillingness to draw a line in the sand."...

...But his frustration was evident as the discussion progressed. Talking, unprompted, about the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts, Strickland said he was dumbfounded at the party's inability to sell the idea that the rates for the wealthy should be allowed to expire.

"I mean, if we can't win that argument we might as well just fold up," he said. "These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don't care if they are paid for, and we don't think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren't paid for because they contribute to the deficit. I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?"...

..."I saw what CNN said after that meeting yesterday. A line saying the president said he should have been willing to work with the GOP earlier. What? After all of this you don't realize these people want to destroy you and your agenda?" he asked. "How many times do you have to be, you know, slapped in the face? Look what they did with health care.

"I mean, I understand a reluctance to reach the conclusion that I think a reasonable person can reach: that [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell was speaking the truth when he said his goal was not to govern, not to develop public policy, but his goal is to defeat this president in 2012."...

Naturally, the "elitism" thing is going to attract a lot of attention, buzzword that it is. I think what he means by "intellectual elitism" is not the same thing they mean on Fox when they use that word, i.e. sneering at working-class beer drinkers. I think he means something more like an unwillingness to get down in the trenches, and an accompanying inability to use straight and strong language.

At this moment, the Democrats are like a basketball team (we'll segue into bball metaphors now that it's December) that's just gone ice cold and can't do anything and are turning the ball over four times in a row while the others go down the court and can three after three (translation: it ain't good).

The ice just builds and builds on itself. Why isn't Obama out there in the country giving speeches saying what Strickland says above? He should be in Maine (Snowe and Collins), Massachusetts (Scott Brown), and other states of GOP senators who just might maybe be susceptible to a little pressure.

But he's obviously not doing that, and my guess as to why he's not doing it would be that he knows he's going to lose this tax fight one way or the other, and he and his advisers think it just looks that much worse if he goes out there on the stump and raises the stakes like that. But at least he'd be standing up for something, and people would be seeing it.

I think he's afraid too. As I've written before, the Democrats are just afraid of the Republicans, of Limbaugh and Beck and Fox and so on. Whatever fancy theories people like me produce, this is what it comes down to. Quit being afraid.

US politicsDemocratsMichael Tomasky
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The myth of Manhattan parking | Michael Tomasky

A second and probably final field report from my week away involves my profound satisfaction, once again, at shattering the stupid shibboleth that parking in Manhattan is an impossibility. You hear everyone say this, except me and my friend BC. They are wrong. BC and I are right.

We got to New York last Saturday afternoon, and we stayed in an apartment on West 64th Street. Now, I will acknowledge that for overnight parking, I did put the car in a garage, at $40 per night. But I did that for safety and peace of mind, not because there weren't parking spaces.

We stayed until Tuesday morning, and we used the car the whole time to go from place to place, because we had the kid and the car seat and couldn't take her in a taxi and didn't feel like messing with the subway. Here is a list of our destinations, and where I found free street parking:
1. Destination Seventh and 25th; free parking Seventh and 24th.
2. Destination Second and 13th; free parking Second and 13th, right across the street from the restaurant.
3. Destination Hudson and Clarkson streets; free parking Hudson and Charles streets, which was six blocks north but we did that because we wanted to walk around the West Village; there was in fact ample parking right in front of our destination.
4. Destination Park and 75th; free parking Park and 74th.
5. Destination West 64th Street, where we were staying; free parking right in front.
6. Destination Broadway between 109th and 110th; free parking around the corner on 110th.

Nothing was ever more than a 40-second walk from the destination. I probably shouldn't be saying this kind of thing, because it may just persuade more people to drive, and that's not a good thing.

But I must write truth to power, friends. This is one of the great myths of all time, right up there with the idea that "Imagine" is a great song, which we've zestfully debunked here previously.

New Yorkers: am I wrong? Come on, tell the truth. Londoners: Is London secretly an easy place to park too, but everyone needs to be in on the big lie?

Most difficult American parking city I've encountered: Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nothing else in my experience is close. I am familiar with area residents who've just given up trying to find legal spaces and factor $300 or so in parking tickets into their yearly budgets. Absolute nightmare, that place. Nice town, though.

United StatesNew YorkMichael Tomasky
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DADT repeal now basically dead | Michael Tomasky

This is big news, via Brian Beutler:

Just hours after Democrats and Republicans agreed to bargain on tax cuts, and fewer hours still after Defense Secretary Robert Gates implored Congress to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year, word leaked that Republicans aren't really interested in any of it -- a major repudiation of Gates' authority.

According to a letter delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning, Republicans will block all debate on all legislation until the tax cut impasse is bridged and the federal government has been fully funded -- even if it means days tick by and the Senate misses its opportunity to pass DADT, an extension of unemployment insurance and other Dem items.

All 42 GOP senators signed this letter, which you can see here (and check out that crazy signature on page three, third one down, right-hand column - it looks like a Kandinsky).

What this means first of all is that don't ask don't tell repeal is basically dead. All the Republicans I cited a couple posts down as potential votes for it have obviously now signed this letter saying that no business will be considered until the tax cuts are done, and the tax cuts are going to take (in all likelihood, I believe) basically all the time they have right up until Christmas. So I think that's probably dead now.

Second, and maybe more interestingly than that, Mitch McConnell was working on this letter yesterday. In other words, at the same time he was meeting with Obama and agreeing that he and other Republicans would sit down with Tim Geithner and Jack Lew (the new OMB director) to work on compromise language on the tax cuts, McConnell was also getting all 42 Republicans to sign on to a letter that says plainly and emphatically, we are not compromising (read the letter's third graf).

Let's be a little more specific. Jon Kyl, Republican senator of Arizona, is the other main signatory of the letter besides McConnell (their names appear on the first page). So Kyl was behind this letter too, starting at least from yesterday. And today:

Two top members of the White House's economic team are heading to the Hill Wednesday to meet with members of both parties in an attempt to form a compromise on the future of the Bush-era tax cuts.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and OMB Director Jack Lew are slated to meet with Republicans Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) as well as Democrats Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

Is Kyl even sitting in that meeting? He has the nerve to go sit there and pretend he's interested in compromise after helping pull together a letter saying no compromise? Geithner should kick him out of the room.

And how about the respect they're showing to Gates - a Bush appointee, and a Republican?

These guys play hardball. I would love to know how McConnell got all those signatures. Most signed eagerly, but I bet there were four or five who knew it wasn't really a pretty crappy thing to do under the circumstances.

But again: it is the nature of the American system, which was designed for compromise, that those who refuse to compromise will win, as long as they have 40 votes in the Senate, which they do. So they will win. It's a total perversion of what was intended. But they will win.

Gay soldiers will suffer. America will suffer in the eyes of the world, a world in which every other advanced nation permits gays to serve openly. Our deficit will grow by $70 billion a year because of their tax intransigence. And they will get their little victory.

US militaryUS CongressMichael Tomasky
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Pinkerton file: Pelosi | Michael Tomasky

You remember our guest poster from the right Jim Pinkerton, yes? Before last week's holiday, I'd asked for his thoughts on the Democrats in the House keeping Nancy Pelosi around for the next Congress as their leader, a subject on which I had then written more than once. Jim sent me the following take, but by the time he did, I was off on my various jaunts. At any rate, it all still holds, so here it is:

11/21/10

MT makes the point that when the team loses the game 42-10, it's time for a new coach. Or a new something. Preferable a big new something.

In American politics, that's a lesson to be learned: A losing hand is a losing hand. After the Democrats lost with Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential election, was it really a good idea to run him again in 1956? No, it wasn't; he was defeated even more decisively the second time around. Yet it reveals much about the nature of persistence--the persistence of ideology, and its imperturbability in the face of hard reality--that Stevenson wanted to run a third time in 1960. Indeed, he enjoyed considerable support in '60 among the left wing of the Democratic Party. Similarly, in the UK; if Neil Kinnock couldn't win in 1987, was there any real logic in running him again in 1992? Short answer: No.

What's that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Yes, that's it. Keeping Pelosi isn't insane, it is merely a formula for losing again.

Indeed, in a demonstrably center-right country, the Democrats are now putting forth the exact same House leadership as they had 60 or so seats ago. Moreover, further affirming every stereotype about "quotacratic" identity politics, the Democratic leadership even pulled strings to carve out a new number three position for Jim Clyburn, the African American from South Carolina.

Ideological purity is a goal, but for most partisans, actual victory is better.

Me again: I sometimes wonder whether that last sentence is true...

Nancy PelosiMichael Tomasky
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Don't ask don't tell nose counting | Michael Tomasky

With the release of yesterday's much-anticipated Pentagon report on don't ask don't tell, you might think Congress could now move toward repeal. Several legislators have said they were waiting for the report before deciding. Well, it's here, and it largely says (based on interviews with 115,000 service members) that changing the policy wouldn't be greatly disruptive. WashPost:

While ending the ban would probably bring about "limited and isolated disruption" to unit cohesion and retention, "we do not believe this disruption will be widespread or long-lasting," it stated. The survey found that 69 percent of respondents said they had served with someone in their unit who they believed to be gay or lesbian. Of those who did, 92 percent stated that their unit's ability to work together was very good, good, or neither good nor poor, the report said.

Combat units reported similar responses, with 89 percent of Army combat units and 84 percent of Marine combat units saying they had good or neutral experiences working with gays and lesbians.

At the same time, the survey found that 30 percent of respondents overall - and between 40 and 60 percent of the Marine Corps - either expressed concern or predicted a negative reaction if Congress were to repeal the law.

That 30% figure is interesting, because it sits alongside findings in which respondents say that they personally wouldn't have a problem, but they think their unit might. In other words it's maybe like the old no, I wouldn't have a problem with a black family moving in down the street, heavens to Betsy, but those Joneses and those Thompsons across the way, they couldn't handle it.

Even so I'd make two points. One, military people take orders. If the order is to proceed as normal, they'll largely proceed as normal. I doubt very much that if you'd polled the US Army in 1948 about their views of blacks, you'd have found this degree of acceptance. But Truman made the order anyway, and while there were obviously problems, the armed services integrated, and the right thing was done.

Second, as Sullivan noted yesterday, it's not as if loads of gay soldiers are suddenly going to be running around doing Ru Paul imitations. They're soldiers, for criminy's sakes. It's an all-volunteer army, and they volunteered, and presumably they like/love the values of the military. Culled from the report and quoted by Sully:

"Personally, I don't feel that this is something I should have to 'disclose.' Straight people don't have to disclose their orientation. I will just be me. I will bring my family to family events. I will put family pictures on my desk. I am not going to go up to people and say, hi there—I'm gay."

"I think a lot of people think there is going to be this big 'outing' and people flaunting their gayness, but they forget that we're in the military. That stuff isn't supposed to be done during duty hours regardless if you're gay or straight."

That seems about right to me.

Now, let's look at the Senate. Lisa Murkowski, Richard Lugar and Susan Collins are the Republicans who have indicated they'd vote to allow repeal to get to the floor. Remember, this would be done in the current Congress, not the next one, so Murkowski is a member whatever happens in the Alaska recount, and the Democrats still have 59 votes, so they theoretically need just one Republican to get the 60 needed to bring it to the floor.

Scott Brown might be a possibility. He faces reelection in 2012 in what will be a heavy Democratic turnout, so his concern is that year's general election, not so much a primary. Olympia Snowe, on the other hand, is up in 2012 and is very concerned about a primary, because the tea baggers have taken over the Maine GOP, so she's going to be voting like Jesse Helms for the next two years.

However, all 59 Democrats aren't there, surprise surprise. Ben Nelson, who is up for reelection in 2012, doesn't want to do it, it seems. Jim Webb, also up in 2012, is iffy. Mark Pryor, not up in '12 but from Arkansas, would be a surprise yes vote.

Then there's Blanche Lincoln, the other Arkansan. She just lost and her political career is over. At this point, is she really going to vote against this?

The bottom line here is, again, what a culturally reactionary institution the US Senate is. Roughly 65% of Americans and an even slightly higher percentage of service people support repeal. And the glorious US Senate faithfully represents neither of those groups.

US militaryUS CongressMichael Tomasky
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Movement on the tax front | Michael Tomasky

TPM's Brian Beutler reports that it looks like Nancy Pelosi has set up a vote this week in the House on extending Bush tax cuts for those under $250,000 only:

Nothing's final, and the timing could change, as it often does. But Dem leaders will attempt to settle on a date at a private meeting on the Hill tonight.

Keep in mind, there's still a great deal of uncertainty about Dems' tax cut strategy. Through last week's congressional recess, neither House nor Senate Dem leaders had the votes to pass a plan like this, and leaders in both chambers were signaling pretty clearly that the coming vote will be both a symbolic political statement about GOP priorities, and a starting point for a negotiated compromise with Republicans and conservative members of their own party.

This is fairly big news, but it would be much bigger news if they had the votes. Because if they could pass this, they could at the very least be in a much stronger bargaining position vis a vis the Senate.

Once again, I say keep an eye on the Democrats who lost and see how they vote on this. Wouldn't you think that maybe if you already lost and were going home anyway, you'd throw your leadership and your president and your party and the historical idea of your party a bone and cast the obvious Democratic vote, which is extend the cuts only for those households under $250K? Wouldn't you think? That of course is not how it's going to do. The Democratic Party is just ridiculous sometimes.

The Schumer proposal is picking up adherents. Before I went away, I told you I'd try to find out what it would cost to do his plan of limiting the hikes to households about $1 million a year. Jon Cohn of TNR beat me to it. It'll cost the treasury $40 billion a year.

Extending all the cuts as the Repubs wish would cost the treasury $70 billion a year. So another way of saying it is that the Schumer compromise collects $30 billion a year that the GOP plan would not. Extending the tax cuts to households under $250,000 costs about $320 million a year.

As I've said many times, I think the Schumer plan is the best the D's can do right now. Ezra laments this:

If that's the ultimate agreement we see on the Bush tax cuts, it'll be worth taking a moment to appreciate how far Democrats have backslid on this issue since Bill Clinton. Clinton, of course, raised taxes in the face of large deficits. The Obama campaign, by contrast, swore not to raise taxes on any family making less than $250,000, and Democrats might now effectively raise that to $1,000,000. In setting up the expectation that taxes can't go up for anyone but millionaires, Democrats take most of them off the table. And given that Republicans have no interest in taxes, either, that basically removes them as a tool of fiscal policy going forward.

That is the cold hard reality. But it's not to say that it's going to be the reality for all time. There might come a day when there are moderate Republicans again, at which time people will understand that budget problems have to be dealt with by looking at both spending and revenue, but that day is at least a generation away. In the meantime, it seems pretty clear to me that the Schumer way is preferable to a two-year extension for all income levels. At least it's a Democratic idea, so they can say they passed one of their own damn ideas. It's probably the last one they'll pass in a while.

Obama administrationUS CongressUS economyMichael Tomasky
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