The Commentariat -- August 2

The President speaks moments after the Senate passed the debt/deficit bill. He has since signed the bill into law:

C-SPAN image.

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square.

For you serious wonks, here's the text of the debt/deficit bill. It's 74 pages. CW: I won't be reading it. ...

... CW: this commentary (mind you, this is analysis, not straight reporting) by John Schoen of NBC News is a good example of what's wrong with the MSM. Look at this sentence:

Consumers, investors, and business owners and executives have watched in horror as their government used the threat of an unprecedented default as a political bargaining chip.

    ... "the government used the threat of ... default as a bargaining chip"? The government? No, it was not the government. It was the Republican party. Fucking irresponsible.

... The Obama presidency in a nutshell by the best nutshell scribe ever, Rick Hertzberg (read his entire commentary):

Obama’s seeming refusal to hold [the Fourteenth Amendment] in reserve ('like the fire axe on the wall,' in Garrett Epps’s words) is emblematic of his all too civilized, all too accommodating negotiating strategy—indeed, of his whole approach to the nation’s larger economic dilemma, the most disappointing aspect of his Presidency. His stimulus package asked for too little and got less. He has allowed deficits and debt to supersede mass unemployment as the emergency of the moment. He has too readily accepted Republican terms of debate, such as likening the country to a household that must 'live within its means.' (For even the most prudent householders, living within one’s means can include going into debt, as in taking out a car loan so that one can get to one’s job.) He has done too little to educate the public to the wisdom of post-Herbert Hoover economics: fiscal balance is achieved over time, not in a single year; in flush times a government should run a surplus, but when the economy falters deficits are part of the remedy; when the immediate problem is what it is now — a lack of demand, not a shortage of capital — higher spending is generally more efficacious than lower taxes, especially lower taxes on the rich.

     ... Hertzberg will conduct a live chat on the debt ceiling at 3:00 pm ET today.

... ** Nate Silver: in view of the substantial majority of Representatives who voted for the debt/deficit bill, it is evident that "Mr. Obama could have shifted the deal tangibly toward the left and still gotten a bill through without too much of a problem. For instance, even if all members of the Tea Party Caucus had voted against the bill, it would still have passed 237-to-193, and that’s with 95 Democrats voting against it. Specifically, it seems likely that Mr. Obama could have gotten an extension of the payroll tax cut included in the bill, or unemployment benefits, either of which would have had a stimulative effect." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... what we’ve witnessed pretty much throughout the western world is a kind of inverse miracle of intellectual failure. Given a crisis that should have been relatively easy to solve — and, more than that, a crisis that anyone who knew macroeconomics 101 should have been well-prepared to deal with — what we actually got was an obsession with problems we didn’t have."

... Jackie Calmes & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times have a blow-by-blow on high-level negotiations on the debt-deficit deal over the past several days. ...

... The New York Times has a chart that outlines how the deficit reduction would work unde the bill the Senate should pass today. ...

... Kate Zernicke of the New York Times: "While Tea Party groups and members of the Tea Party caucus in the House loudly insisted that they would not support any increase in the debt limit, many rank-and-file Tea Party voters did support it. In interviews and in recent polls, many voters said they backed the Tea Party in the midterm elections because they wanted a change from the status quo, or because they felt that the government spent too much money, but not because they considered reducing the federal debt the nation’s biggest concern." ...

... Joe Nocera has a pretty good column on what a terrible effect the Tea Party hostage deal will have on the economy: "America’s real crisis is not a debt crisis. It’s an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn’t address unemployment, it’s guaranteed to make it worse." ...

You need to set a thief to catch a thief. -- President Franklin Roosevelt, on his appointment of Joe Kennedy as S.E.C. chairman ...

... Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times on the revolving door between the S.E.C. & the Wall Street firms the S.E.C. is supposed to police. CW: looks like that revolving door is hitting the rest of us in the ass.

Prof. Tera Hunter on the real story of slave families in the American South. (CW: near the end of her essay, I think Hunter confuses Bachmann with Palin. It was Bachmann, not Palin, who insisted the founders fought against slavery. Update: e-mailed back-&-forth with Hunter, & she says Palin makes the claim in her latest book. If you don't think being a scholar is tough, consider that -- Hunter had to read Palin's book!)

CW: I haven't read it yet, but this long New Yorker piece by Nicholas Schmidle on "Getting bin Laden" looks interesting.

AND, just because we deserve some fun:

FBI artist's rendition of D. B. Cooper, via the Seattle P. I.Casey McNerthney of the Seattle Post Intelligencer: "The FBI has what it calls 'our most promising' lead to date for a suspect in the infamous 1971 D.B. Cooper case – the nation's only unsolved commercial airplane hijacking. The name of a man not previously investigated was given to the FBI, and an item that belongs to him was sent for fingerprint work at the agency's Quantico, Va...." ...

     ... Update: "The man investigated as a suspect in the D.B. Cooper case ... has been dead for about 10 years, and a forensic check didn't find fingerprints on an item that belonged him, an FBI spokesman told seattlepi.com Monday." ...

     ... Update 2. Katharine Seelye & Charlie Savage of the New York Times have the story here.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After dealing with the debt crisis, Senate negotiators tried and failed Tuesday to end a stalemate over temporary funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving 4,000 F.A.A. employees out of work and relying on airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay. The partial F.A.A. shutdown, which began July 23 and is likely to continue at least through Labor Day, has also idled tens of thousands of construction workers on airport projects around the country."

C-SPAN says the Senate is to vote at noon on the debt/deficit bill. No link. But if you want to watch the vote, C-SPAN is airing the Senate session here. At 12:15 pm ET, the Senate is voting. Update: the voting is still ongoing @ 12:34 pm ET, but C-SPAN reports that the Senate has passed the bill. CW: An interesting mix of "no" votes from the far right & the left (including Gillibrand of New York who is certainly positioning herself for a run for higher office). Update 2: at about 12:40 pm ET, Dick Durbin declared the bill passed. ...

     ... Update 3: at 2:00 pm ET Jay Carney just reported that President Obama has signed the debt/deficit bill into law. ...

     ... Update 4: here's the Washington Post story.

Reuters: "The 'Great Recession' was even greater than previously thought, and the U.S. economy has skated uncomfortably close to a new one this year. New data on Friday showed the 2007-2009 U.S. recession was much more severe than prior measures had found, with economic output declining a cumulative of 5.1 percent instead of 4.1 percent. The report also showed the current slowdown began earlier and has been deeper than previously thought, with growth in the first quarter advancing at only a 0.4 percent annual pace. The data indicated the economy began slowing in the fourth quarter of last year before high gasoline prices and supply chain disruptions from Japan's earthquake had hit, suggesting the weakness is more fundamental and less temporary than economists had believed."

AP: "The legislation [to raise the debt limit], which easily passed the House on Monday, is virtually assured to clear the Senate shortly after noon Tuesday by a bipartisan tally. The White House promises Obama will sign the measure into law." CW: the AP now characterizes the bill as "bipartisan legislation." Here's the New York Times story, which has been updated to reflect the Senate's passing the bill.

** Two Victories for Equal Rights:

     New York Times: "The Obama administration issued new standards on Monday that require health insurance plans to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other charges. The standards, which also guarantee free coverage of other preventive services for women, follow recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and grew out of the new health care law."

     AP: "An incredulous federal judge on Monday rejected the state's claim that a new Kansas statute that denied Planned Parenthood federal funding did not target the group, ruling that the law unconstitutionally intended to punish Planned Parenthood for advocating for abortion rights and would likely be overturned." CW: read this for the state's essentially pejurious defense of the law.

The Commentariat -- August 1

They have acted like terrorists. -- Vice President Joe Biden, referring to Tea Party Republicans, in a closed-door meeting with Democrats

President Obama Sunday night on debt ceiling deal:

... Here's the White House fact sheet on the particulars of the deal. CW: talk about low expectations, it appears the deal isn't as bad as I thought it would be. ...

... AND here's Boehner's fact sheet (pdf) which he prepared for his caucus. As Steve Benen gleefully points out, Boehner's fact sheet is not factual. Boehner lied to his own caucus to make the deal sound more Loon Squad-friendly. With any luck, they won't catch on. ...

... The Washington Post has a handy little chart on who got what. ...

... NEW. CW: As I said yesterday upon looking over the an outline of the deal, so says Nate Silver: "If Democrats read the fine print on the debt deal struck by President Obama and Congressional leaders, they’ll find that it’s a little better than it appears at first glance." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the deal ... is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status." ...

... I've posted a Krugman page on Off Times Square. Several other commenters and I have added our New York Times comments; the Times has held back all of them, so -- as usual -- this is the place to read same-day comments. ...

... ** Too Late. The Damage Is Already Done. David Sanger of the New York Times: "Among foreign leaders and in global markets, the political histrionics have eroded America’s already diminishing aura as the world’s economic haven and the sole country with the power to lead the rest of the world out of financial crisis and recession. It has chipped away at the global authority of President Obama, who was celebrated abroad when he came to office as a man who would end an era of American unilateralism. Now the topic of discussion in other capitals is whether the Age of Obama is giving way to an Age of Austerity, one that will inevitably reduce America’s influence internationally." ...

... Matt Miller of the Washington Post writes an excellent column the headline of which is "The debt deal: disaster averted, decline straight ahead." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... it apppears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return." ...

... AND Sargent on Obama's tactics: "... while critics ... argue that there is plenty more Obama could have done to rally the public to pressure Republicans, it’s important to note that Obama and Dems did win the P.R. battle. Multiple polls showed strong support for compromise; they showed a decisive shift towards the notion that failure to raise the debt ceiling could be catastrophic; they showed the public would blame the GOP for failure. Yet that didn’t stop the GOP from allowing the threat of default to linger, even as it upped its demands." ...

... Long Ride on a Blunder Bus. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: "There’s a limit to how much faith one can place in a man who has so badly misjudged his political opponents time and time again. The debt ceiling ransom may be a shrewd strategic retreat, or it may be the largest in a series of historic capitulations." ...

... Michael Scherer of Time: Americans' Number One priority is jobs, and the debt deal means at least short-term limits on jobs creation. CW: frankly, I think that's the cynical understory in the Tea Party Plan to Wreck America.

... Cuts Will Make a Weak Economy Weaker. Binyamin Appelbaum & Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "The emerging outlines of a deal to cut spending by at least $2.4 trillion over 10 years, with a multibillion-dollar down payment later this year, would complete an about-face in the federal government’s role from outsize spending in the immediate aftermath of the recession to outsize cuts going forward." CW: funny how in the last couple of days -- at least a month after it was too late -- stories like this are finally moving off the op-ed pages & blogs & into the news & analysis pages. ...

... Daniel Stone of the Daily Beast: Vice President Joe "Biden hasn’t been heard from publicly in 61 days, since he last spoke with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on a visit to Rome. But on the day that a final deal with Republicans finally came together, White House officials said that Biden had been the key player in the administration's dealings with Congress, especially late in the negotiations when talks descended repeatedly into partisan warfare...." ...

... New York Times Editors: "... this episode demonstrates the effectiveness of extortion. Reasonable people are forced to give in to those willing to endanger the national interest." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "When the hostage is released, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, no matter what it took to secure his safety." ...

... USA Today Editors: They didn't cut enough! CW: really. ...

... Wall Street Journal Editors: Ditto. Of course. Oh, and blame it on liberals. ...

... Simon Johnson, writing in Bloomberg News, zeros in on "the U.S.’s single largest fiscal problem over the next decade: The lack of adequate capital buffers at banks." He explains.

Profs. Jacob Hacker & Oona Hathaway in a New York Times op-ed: "After the debt crisis ends, the democracy crisis must be tackled. Nobody wins when our constitutional system falters: not the president, who gains unilateral power but loses a governing partner; not Congress, which gets to blame the president but risks irrelevance; and certainly not the American people, who have to bear the resulting dysfunction."

Local News

More Reasons Florida Sucks. Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "Despite having the country’s fourth-highest unemployment rate, its second-highest rate of people without insurance and a $3.7 billion budget gap this year, the state has turned away scores of millions of dollars in grants made available under the Affordable Care Act. And it is not pursuing grants worth many millions more. In recent months, either [America's Worst Governor] Rick Scott’s administration or the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected grants aimed at moving long-term care patients into their homes, curbing child abuse through in-home counseling and strengthening state regulation of health premiums. They have shunned money to help sign up eligible recipients for Medicare, educate teenagers on preventing pregnancy and plan for the health insurance exchanges that the law requires by 2014."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Israel has told Middle East power brokers it was ready to discuss a proposed package on borders with Palestinians to help Western powers revive stalled peace talks, an Israeli official said Monday. The official denied reports by Israeli and other media outlets that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had backed down from an earlier rejection of President Barack Obama's proposal to negotiate a pullback to so-called 1967 borders."

Washington Post: "The House approved a bill that raises the federal debt limit and cuts discretionary spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. The 269 to 161 vote sends the bill to the Senate, which is likely to consider the plan Tuesday. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords cast her first vote in the House since being shot in January, voting yes." ...

... CBS News: "Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona made a surprise return to Washington Monday to vote in favor of an agreement to raise the debt limit.... Lawmakers offered Giffords a standing ovation on the House floor when she showed up in the chamber. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Giffords' name inspires the love and admiration of Americans, and said to applause: 'Thank you, Gabby.'" AP story here, with what looks like a screengrab. ...

... New York Times: "Democratic and Republican leaders in the Congress began making their final arguments on behalf of Sunday’s debt ceiling deal to skeptical members in advance of votes in both chambers that could come as early as Monday afternoon." ...

    ... Update. New Headline (the lede hasn't caught up yet): "House passes bill on debt ceiling."

Here's the Washington Post's take on the politics of the deal. "The deal was negotiated primarily by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It teetered all day on the edge of completion as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) bickered with Democrats over whether to freeze next year’s defense budget. In the end, Boehner conceded the point, and Obama finalized the agreement in phone calls to each of the four congressional leaders shortly after 8 p.m."

Washington Post: "Asian and European markets surged Monday after President Obama and congressional leaders reached a deal to raise the debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default that threatened painful implications for the global economy." ...

     ... CW Update: the American stock market sure ain't liking it. See widget above. New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street briefly followed European and Asian financial markets higher Monday, but any relief over the last-minute agreement on a framework in Washington to raise the United States debt limit was short-lived.... The dip coincided with the release of new data that showed American manufacturing growing more slowly...."

AP: "British banking group HSBC said Monday it will cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by 2013 and sell almost half its retail bank branches in the U.S., part of a new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets." CW: yesterday the story was 10,000 jobs."

The Commentariat -- July 31

Tea Potty Floats Past Rudderless Ship of State. Maureen Dowd bemoans the lack of leadership in Congress or from this guy: "The laconic president emerges from the sidelines periodically to warn about economic default, but we’re already in political default." ...

... I've posted a comments page on Maureen Dowd's column on Off Times Square. Update: Karen Garcia & I have posted our comments. Garcia's made the cut. The moderators held back mine, so you'll have to read it here. ...

... NEW. Read It and Weep. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.] sketched the outlines of a $3 trillion, debt framework that would pair an immediate increase in the federal borrowing limit with immediate spending cuts. The proposal would also include caps on spending over the next decade and would mandate that a bipartisan committee of lawmakers recommend further cuts and potential changes to entitlement programs by the fall, with a 'trigger' mechanism to ensure that action is taken to reduce the debt if the committee reaches a stalemate. The process would involve a 'resolution of disapproval' by Congress that would allow the debt ceiling to be further raised next year if one-third of either chamber agrees – an idea first proposed by McConnell in a 'Plan B' he unveiled several weeks ago. The move would shift the political burden of raising the debt ceiling to the White House from congressional Republicans. Also included in the nascent proposal would be a provision calling for a vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution...." ...

... Even worse, you can watch & listen to Mitch explain the deal to Gloria Borger of CNN:

... In which the only panelist worth hearing is Krugman. I put these videos up on Off Times Square in response to a comment, but just to hear Krugman -- and the delusion he's up against -- is enlightening for us all:

... Very Serious Suckers. Paul Krugman: "Anyone reading the newspapers with an open mind had a pretty good idea of what would happen in the debt fight; only Washington insiders managed to fool themselves." ...

... Eric Dash & Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "In the last few days, top [Wall Street] executives have been in close contact with Washington in a last-ditch attempt to prod lawmakers toward a compromise by Tuesday...." ...

... Green Eggs & Ham. Frank Bruni has breakfast with Grover Norquist.

New York Times Editors: "The economy is in trouble, and Washington — fixated on budget slashing at a time when the economy needs more spending — seems determined to make matters worse." The editors have some admittedly piecemeal suggestions to help keep the economy from returning to full recession mode. ...

... CW: As I've Been Saying, Ad Nauseum. Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "... there is, in theory, a happy solution to our debt troubles. It’s called economic growth. No need to raise taxes or cut programs. Just get the economy growing the way it used to.... Back in the Great Depression, Washington tightened its belt with disastrous results. Congress severely reduced spending in 1937, plunging the economy back into the hole. Ultimately, that meant even more federal borrowing.... After World War II, gross federal debt reached 122 percent of G.D.P., the highest ratio on record. But over the next 40 years, it fell to about 33 percent. That wasn’t because some blue-ribbon panel prescribed austerity; it was because the American economy became much, much richer.... Countries that undertake fiscal consolidation in the midst of a crisis — like the one Washington is in right now — tend to be penny-wise and pound-foolish." ...

... The Ratings Agencies Really Don't Care about You. Peter Schroeder of The Hill: "The 'limited magnitude' of both debt plans put forward by congressional leaders would not put the nation's AAA credit rating back on solid footing, Moody's Investors Service announced Friday.... It added that 'prolonged debt ceiling deliberations' have increased the odds of a downgrade.... As far as it is concerned, the nation will only default if it misses an interest or principal payment on U.S. debt, not if it misses payments on other obligations like federal employee salaries or Social Security benefits." [emphasis added]

The president’s proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare has the potential to sap the energy of the Democratic base — among older voters because of Medicare and Medicaid and younger voters because of the lack of jobs. And second, all these fiscal austerity proposals on the table will make the economy worse. -- Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO policy director ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times notices Our Conservative Republican President has turned off liberal voters. No kidding. ...

... NEW. Glenn Greenwald: "... a slew of millionaire politicians who spent the last decade exploding the national debt with Endless War, a sprawling Surveillance State, and tax cuts for the rich are now imposing extreme suffering on the already-suffering ordinary citizenry, all at the direction of their plutocratic overlords, who are prospering more than ever and will sacrifice virtually nothing under this deal (despite their responsibility for the 2008 financial collapse that continues to spawn economic misery).  And all of this will be justified by these politicians and their millionaire media mouthpieces with the obscenely deceitful slogans of 'shared sacrifice' and 'balanced debt reduction' -- two of the most odiously Orwellian phrases since 'Look Forward, not Backward' and '2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.'..." ...

... Pollster Stan Greenberg in a New York Times op-ed: "... many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don’t trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.... They think that the game is rigged and that the wealthy and big industries get policies that reinforce their advantage. And they do not think their voices matter." Greenberg proposes a series of prescriptions that Democrats should follow to turn around public prescriptions.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "President Obama and Congressional leaders of both parties said late Sunday that they had agreed to a framework for a budget deal that would cut trillions of dollars in federal spending over the next decade and clear the way for an increase in the government’s borrowing limit."

Politico: "Late in the afternoon, a statement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said: 'Senator Reid has signed off on the debt-ceiling agreement pending caucus approval.'"

New York Times: "HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, plans to announce thousands of job cuts on Monday as part of a wide-ranging cost-reduction program that started in May, a person with direct knowledge of the decision said Sunday. HSBC plans to cut about 10,000 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force...."

At 1:20 pm ET, it appears the Senate is voting on cloture on the Reid bill. So the vote failed & they're going to reconsider it at 4:00 pm ET. Reid says he's still working with the House & the Administration. Jay Newton-Small of Time has an update on negotiations, but the rank-and-file of both parties are wary of the deal, she says.

If there's a word that would be right here that would sum up the mood, it would be relief ... default is far less of a possibility now than it was a day ago. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

ABC News: "Democratic and Republican Congressional sources involved in the negotiations tell ABC News that a tentative agreement has been reached on the framework of a deal that would give the President a debt ceiling increase of up to $2.4 trillion and guarantee an equal amount of deficit reduction over the next 10 years. The details are still being worked out, and a senior White House aide tells ABC News, 'talks continue but there is no deal to report.'" Bloomberg News: ditto. ...

... Here's the latest from the Washington Post. AND the latest from the New York Times is here.

... Washington Post: "Shortly after 10 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced that talks between McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Biden had made significant progress, prompting Reid to delay a vote that had been scheduled for 1 a.m. Sunday on his own debt-limit measure."

Los Angeles Times: "Syrian security forces loyal to the embattled regime of President Bashar Assad launched a major military assault on opposition strongholds Sunday, using tanks and gunfire in authorities' latest attempt to crush a pro-democracy movement that appears to be gathering momentum ahead of the emotionally and religiously charged holy month of Ramadan." Al Jazeera story here; with video.